


"Advent"ures of Carmilla 2016

by hallow777



Series: "Advent"ures of Carmilla [2]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Advent Calender 2016, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-08-30 02:59:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 26,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8515933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hallow777/pseuds/hallow777
Summary: An Advent Fanfiction Calendar of Carmilla goodness. A new one each day in December all the way 'till Christmas.December 25th: Adventures in Towers AKA the one where Laura is the one stuck in a tower.





	1. Adventures in Haunted Houses

**Author's Note:**

> And so it begins! I hope this brings a little cheer for you guys this month whether you celebrate any holidays or not. 
> 
> And yes, a good majority of these are ideas from tumblr au things. I can't help it. I see them and then I just run with them.
> 
> Some days I may not be able to post them until later in the day if I have to work all day and don't get a chance to post before going to work.

“-as you can see it’s a cozy but still spacious house. Three bedrooms on the main floor along with a bonus room in the attic which can’t technically be called a bedroom because it is a foot too short on the sides to pass regulations but I’ve always thought it would make a perfect cozy bedroom though.” Laura gestured to both bedrooms as she walked passed it, doing her best to show off the houses nice qualities to the couple who were in the market to buy a house.

“I’m not going to lie. We were afraid of what the inside would look like considering that this house is listed for almost half the price of the similar ones we have looked at in the area but it does seem nice so what’s the catch? Is the roof going to cave in on us or something?” The man, David, asked while fixing her with a hard stare as if he could glare her into spilling the house’s deep dark secrets. His wife had been kind enough during their interactions but David had managed to rub Laura the wrong way ever since their first meeting.

“I can assure you, there is no catch. It’s simply been on the market for a long time now and the owners are ready to be done with it. The roof was actually replaced ten years ago after some damage- uh, storm damage- right before the owner moved out so no worries there.”

Laura guided them into the kitchen as she talked so they could look around there as well.

“Wait, are you saying this house has been on the market for ten years?”

“No, no. After the owners moved out they rented it out for a while but then decided they didn’t want to mess with renting and wanted to sell it instead.”

“So how long exactly has it been for sell?” He was doing that staring thing again but she was determined to be nice and sell this house.

She couldn’t lie to them though.

“Nearly nine years.”

“And no one else wanted to buy it? Sorry, girlie, but I find that hard to believe there’s gotta be something you aren’t telling us and we don’t appreciate being lied to.”

Laura could feel herself getting riled up at that. She maybe young at the age of twenty one but she had gotten a two year degree straight out of highschool and had been doing this for a year now. Officially anyway. Her father had been a realtor long before she was born and she’d grown up going to showings with him and learning how to do things. She knew what she was doing and she really didn’t enjoy people looking down on her for being young or a woman.

But, she had to be a professional about this. The guy may be a jerk but she had seen interest in his wife’s eyes. The kind of interest Laura usually saw when people have found the house for them.

“See honey? I knew we should have insisted on having the older guy show us houses. He wouldn’t have-”

Before the man could finish his sentence an ominous moaning sound started coming from down the hallway, effectively cutting him off.

“What the hell was that?”

There wasn’t much in the way of furniture in the house but over the years they had collected some second hand pieces to try and spruce up the place in hopes of attracting buyers but it may not have been their best idea.

The furniture started shaking and small objects started floating around and even though the husband and wife were obviously terrified, Laura just stood off to the side gently thumping her head against the wall.

She really thought she was at least going to get through the showing before something happened this time.

“...get…out…”

Blood was seeping out of the walls as the words were being written over and over again on the walls. David was legitimately freaking out and honestly Laura had to admit it was kind of funny seeing him be so scared but as furniture started making its way towards them, Laura was quick to rush the couple out the back door.

Without even saying a word to her, the couple ran around the house, hopped in their car and peeled out of the driveway.

Well, so much for that chance.

With an irritated sigh, Laura turned around and marched right back into the house even though furniture was still moving and the walls were still seeping.

Angrily she pushed the furniture out of her way until she was standing in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips.

“Get….out...or you will-”

“Oh cut it out, it’s just me. You already scared them off.”

The furniture stopped shifting closer to her and the blood receded back into the walls.

“So, did you sell the house this time?”

Laura whipped around to see a dark haired woman smirking at her while casually floating above the ground.

“I thought we talked about this, Carm! We’ve got to sell this house! It’s ruining the good name of Hollis Realty because word is getting out about this house being on the market so long. We are just lucky that most people you scare off are too scared to even talk about this house.”

“Sorry cutie, I just don’t feel like sharing. You wouldn’t like it if someone tried to move into your house without your approval.”

“It isn’t your house! You can’t own a house because you are a freaking ghost!”

Carmilla narrowed her eyes at the girl, “wow, and you think I’m the rude one?”

“Sorry…” Laura regretted pointing out what was a sore subject for the girl but then she thought of all the potential buyers Carmilla has run off over the years, “wait no. Not sorry! We’ve got to sell this house.”

“Yeah, good luck with that.”

Carmilla gave her a sarcastic little wave and then faded out of sight leaving Laura with her thoughts.

Something had to be done about this house, one way or another.

* * *

 

Ghosts didn’t really sleep but Carmilla found there were times when she wasn’t really aware of her surroundings and it was the closest thing to sleep she could do. Sometimes she would “sleep” for a few minutes. Sometimes she would sleep for days, even weeks.

She really wasn’t sure how long she had been asleep this time she did know that this was definitely the rudest awakening she had had in a very long time.

“Is the bed good there, Ma’am?”

“Perfect. Thanks. I can set up the rest of this room by myself if you guys want to start bringing in the rest of the boxes and living room furniture.”

Carmilla glared at a burly man as he nodded at Laura then motioned for the other guy who had helped carry the bed and they both headed down the stairs.

“What the frilly hell was that, cupcake? I know you are mad at me but to drop a bed on me while I was sleeping? Really?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been sleeping where my bed was going. Besides no one knew you were there.”

A no doubt snarky and scathing reply was just on the tip of the ghost’s tongue when something occurred to her, “wait, your bed? What is your bed doing in my house?”

“My bed is in _my_ house. After you scared off the last potential buyer, I got to thinking. We really needed to get rid of this house but it's not like we could push it off on any other companies, they wouldn’t take it, so I got in contact with the owners and talked with them and we made a deal.”

Hesitantly, “what kind of deal?”

“The kind of deal that no twenty one year old out of college and still living with their dad could pass up. They didn’t really want to try renting again but once they realized that I knew about the hauntings and still wanted it anyway they gave in.”

“So you’re…?”

Laura grinned so wide Carmilla was sure her face was going to split in half, “I’m your new roommate, _cupcake_.”


	2. Adventures in Vampire Turning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place pretty early on in season 1.

“Hey Frosh, how’d it go with that meeting with the Dean? What did she want with you anyway?” Lafontaine said as they set their tray down on the table next to Laura a little too roughly, startling the freshman who seemed to be in a daze.

“Huh? Oh yeah. I think it went okay? I mean, I don’t really remember much of it, actually. I remember walking in and then really the next thing I remember was her saying she would see me again soon and then leaving.”

“That doesn’t sound too good, Laura. Are you sure you aren’t sick? Are you getting enough vitamins? Memory loss at your age can not be a good sign.” Perry had been walking right behind Lafontaine with her own tray and before she even set hers down, she went around to the side of the table where Laura was at so she could put a hand to the girl’s forehead and check for a fever.

“Perr, chill. It’s Silas. Temporary loss of time is like the least bad thing that could happen around here. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Yeah, Laf is probably right. After all it was with the Dean of students. It wasn’t like I forgot a whole hour with the Zetas or something. Now that would be a cause for worry.”

Lafontaine nodded their head in agreement and then they all focused on eating their meals before it got too cold. At least, two of them did anyway. Laura kept getting distracted by something or rather someone off in the distance.

“So you are a neck kinda girl, aren’t you Frosh?”

Laura turned back around to look at Lafontaine with a confused expression on her face.

“What are you talking about?”

“You can’t keep your eyes off Lawrence over there. Or more specifically, her neck. I’m not one to judge but it’s just a tiny bit creepy.”

“I-I- I am not!” Laura sputtered out and did her best to focus solely on the food on her tray.

* * *

 

Carmilla opened the door to their dorm room fully expecting Laura to be already asleep seeing as it was nearly four in the morning but instead she found her overly excited roommate propped up on pillows in her bed, quietly yelling at the characters fighting on her laptop screen.

“...You’re still up?”

Without even turning to look at her, Laura nodded.

“I found this really cool show on netflix. I just can’t stop watching it. I’ll go to bed after this episode though.”

“Whatever.”

It didn’t matter any to Carmilla either way but she did find it a little odd that the human was up so late especially when she knew the girl had an early morning class.

It only got weirder when Laura ended up finally falling asleep just a little before Carmilla herself did.

* * *

 

“Oh, hey. We were just about to get started without you. Perry has the snacks out already and everything. This is going to be a great study session.” The door swung open wide as Lafontaine turned around to head back to the little table set up in the middle of their dorm room, leaving Laura still standing outside the door.

“Um…” Laura found herself shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably for no reason. She’d been to Lafontaine and Perry’s room many times before but it just didn’t seem right to just walk in this time.

It only took a second for Lafontaine to realize their guest wasn’t following them. “Dude, come on in. What are you waiting for?”

And just like that suddenly Laura’s hesitation faded away and she was able to step inside the room.

But then she caught sight of the cross Perry had hanging on the wall on her side and suddenly she didn’t feel very good at all.

“Uh, you know what? I’m really not feeling the greatest. I think maybe I should just go lay down for a while.”

Predictably Perry rushed over and tried to figure out what was wrong with the girl but eventually Laura was able to get away and head back to her dorm.

Strangely enough, she felt fine once she left her friend’s room.

Oh well, with the amount of snacks they had in there, they would have spent more time eating than studying. Besides, she was craving something that Perry didn’t have out on the table.

Laura wasn’t entirely sure what this craving was but she had a feeling it was something more liquid-y.

Like a milkshake or hot cocoa. Probably.

Thankfully she always had a pretty well stocked supply of cocoa, she was sure that would hit the spot.

* * *

 

 

Laura had been acting strange lately but Carmilla was firmly telling herself that she did not care enough to find out why the girl was acting weird. So far, it was working if only barely. 

When she came back to the dorm one night and found Laura still up and slamming her fists on the desk in frustration, the question just slipped out, “what’s got your panties in a bunch this time?”

“It’s this stupid camera! I don’t understand it, it shows everything else but people. It used to never show you which was weird but manageable. Now it won’t show me either. What kind of camera does that? HOW AM I GOING TO FINISH MY JOURNALISM PROJECT IF I DON’T SHOW UP ON CAMERA? I’m going to have to start over and do something else. I’m never going to be done on time and...”

Carmilla immediately regretted even saying anything and once Laura really started ranting, she slipped off to the bathroom so the sound of the shower could drown out Laura’s voice.

It unfortunately did not drown out the wayward thoughts that were running around in her brain.

Laura couldn't be...

* * *

 

“Have you seen Laura? I could have sworn she was just here.”

“Oh she went to go put on some more sun screen, she will be right back I’m sure.” Perry replied while keeping an eye on some rambunctious Zetas who were getting a little too close to the corner of the pool they were at.

“Don’t you think this is a little odd?”

“Of course. Some sort of rift opened up under the campus pool and is keeping it warm enough to use even in the winter but for once, I think I’d just like to relax and enjoy it without questioning it. Can we please just once, not make this any weirder than it already is?” Perry leaned back against the wall of the pool and closed her eyes, completely missing the confused face Lafontaine was giving her.

“No, not that. Laura, disappearing just about every hour on the dot to reapply sunscreen.”

“She’s just being very careful not to get a sunburn. In fact, we should probably be doing the same.”

“Per, it’s winter. The sun is barely shining, I think we will be fine- oh, Laura just texted me.”

Lafontaine reached over to grab the small waterproof bag that had their phone in it and opened up the message from Laura.

“‘Looks like I got pretty sunburned after all so I’m heading back to the dorms, have fun!’ How in the world did she get sunburned after all that sunscreen?”

“Oh no, I hope she’s okay. Did she say anything else?”

Lafontaine shook their head, “Nah, she just sent a weird picture of the floor of the changing room.”

* * *

 

Before Carmilla even got to the door of their dorm room, she could sense Laura and something else in the room. The other presence was too small to be another person, it had to be an animal and there was no way she was sharing a dorm with a hyperactive human _and_ some flea infested stray Laura couldn’t say no too. 

And so, that’s what she told Laura when she walked in and startled the girl who quickly shoved a box behind her back.

“It’s not what you think…”

“I’m pretty sure it is. Let me guess, it's a kitten that was left outside in the rain and you just had to bring it here. Take it to the ginger twins room or something, it’s not staying here.”

“Pets aren’t allowed in the dorms though, Perry would have to get rid of it someway even though I know she really wouldn’t want to. I can’t do that to her. It’s injured, please can it just stay here for the night? I’ll try to find someone else to take it in the morning, please?”

Laura was looking up at her with those big tearful eyes but Carmilla was determined to stand her ground. Another cat would not be staying in her territory. She couldn’t exactly say that to Laura though so while she was trying to figure out what exactly to say, Laura spoke up again.

“It’s not a kitten, if that helps any.”

“Dogs are worse. They are noisy. You can’t keep it here.”

“It’s not a dog either…” 

Now Carmilla was a curious, just what had the little cupcake brought home?

“Just show me and get it over with so we can get on with our lives.”

Laura fidgeted for a few seconds before finally sliding the shoe box out from behind her and holding it out towards Carmilla.

“...Oh.”

Inside was a small fruit bat with an injured wing that Laura had apparently taken great care in wrapping up as best as she could.

It was-

“-just so cute I couldn’t leave it there and it seemed to like me because it didn’t freak out or anything when I picked it up and brought it here. It’s just so fluffy and adorable and please, please can we keep it here for a while? Pleeeeeea-”

“Ugh, fine. Whatever.”

“Yes! Thank you!” Laura actually fist pumped the air with the hand that was not holding the box then quickly turned and put the box back on her desk and went back to talking to the little bat and letting it suck the juice out of the small chunks of mango that she was offering it.

Carmilla settled into her bed with a book and tried to act like she didn’t care at all but once Laura started fretting about what to do with the bat while she took a shower, Carmilla spoke up and told her she could leave him on the desk and she would keep an eye on him.

As soon as the shower turned on, Carmilla rushed over, grabbed the box, and took it back to her bed and spent the entire time Laura was in the shower gushing over the cute little bat.

It was a weakness, she couldn’t help it.

It was a vampire thing.

She definitely wasn’t going to let Laura know that though so by the time Laura came out of the shower, the bat was safely back on her desk. 

* * *

 

 

When Lafontaine and Perry said that they were coming over to her dorm, she had been expecting an impromptu study session or that they had some juicy gossip to share or something.

There was no way she had been expecting this.

“Frosh, really. It’s okay. You can tell us. Sure, it’s a little weird but we will still be your friends as long as you don’t, you know, bite us.”

“Laf, please. I am not a vampire!”

“Lafontaine is right, Laura. We will still be your friends. You don’t have to keep it a secret anymore. I’m sure there’s a lot of other students at this school who come here and hide who they really are but you don’t have to hide from us.”

Perry was looking at her with such a soft and trusting expression that Laura would have given in at any other time if she had actually been hiding a secret like that from them.

“Look, I appreciate all that but really I am not a vampire! What in the world gave you that idea?”

Lafontaine just stared pointedly at her and then began listing off things on their fingers, “super easily sunburnt, staring at people’s necks, has to be invited in, doesn’t like crosses, and currently has a pet bat.”

“That’s not… I don’t...”

“And if that isn’t enough, there’s blood in your fridge.”

“Ew, gross. There is not.”

Perry looked away as Lafontaine grabbed the Soy Tasty container out of the fridge and made a show of pouring the red liquid into a cup.

“That’s not mine. It’s Carmilla’s.”

“Uh huh,” Lafontaine was absolutely unconvinced, “are you sure you don’t want to take a sip of this?”

“No…”

There were a few moments of silence while Laura seemed to be memorized by the cup but then Lafontaine sighed and Laura snapped out of it.

“Okay, I’m sorry for pushing. If you don’t want to tell us, you don’t have to. That’s your decision. We just wanted to make sure that you knew we would be here for you when you decide to tell us, okay?”

“Thanks, I think. But really, you have to believe me. I am not a vampire. You are right though, some weird things are going on and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. Starting with why my roommate has blood in a milk container.”

* * *

 

 

“We need to talk,” was the first thing that Carmilla heard when she walked into her dorm and it immediately made her want to turn around and walk back out but Laura didn’t give her the chance because she was already shoving a container into her arms.

“What is this?”

Carmilla looked down at the container in her arms and pretended to take the time to really look it over. “Well, it appears to be my soy milk container.”

“I meant what’s inside it. I’m not a big fan of soy milk but I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to look like that. So spill it, why do you have blood in the fridge?”

Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at Laura and then walked over to the little fridge and put the container back in it’s spot.

“It was supposed to be a joke. It’s fake.”

“It’s not.” Laura had her hand on her hips and chin held high, she was not going to give in.

“Oh really? So what crazy explanation has that pretty little head of yours come up with to explain why I’d have real blood in the fridge?”

“Because…” Suddenly, Laura realized how stupid this was going to sound, “because you are a vampire…?”

“You don’t sound too confident about that.”

Laura couldn’t seem to focus on Carmilla anymore. Her gaze just kept sliding over to look at the fridge where Carmilla had put the container back up.

“You look like you are about to make yourself sick over this. Why don’t we just forget this conversation ever happened and go back to mostly ignoring each other, okay?”

Carmilla was expecting an agreement or even for Laura to try and protest a little bit more but, once again, Laura surprised her when tears started streaming down the girl’s face.

“Uh, cupcake?”

“I don’t- I don’t know what’s going on with me. I feel so weird and I thought maybe, with everything weird going on that I had figured it out but- but if I’m wrong then I don’t know what’s going on and I…” Laura trailed off as her knees gave out and she sank to the floor.

Now Carmilla wasn’t really good with emotions, either hers or someone else's, but she did have a weakness for crying girls. It had gotten her into plenty trouble over the years and was most likely about to get her in trouble again because she couldn’t stand to see Laura like that.

“Hey, come on now. I can’t help you if you are crying so hard I can’t understand you. Do I need to go track down that science ginger and have them come see what’s wrong?”

“No-” more sniffling, “-they think I’m a vampire. They would probably just- just make me drink blood or something.”

“Why do they think that?” Carmilla was suddenly reminded about all the weird things she had noticed Laura doing over the last couple of weeks but if she was turned, how did it happen?

“Pet bat, I couldn’t go into their dorm without being invited in, Perry’s crosses bug me for some reason, I burn in the sun really easily now and apparently I keep staring at Danny’s neck.”

Laura managed to mumble out the things that Lafontaine had listed for her the other day before drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them.

Carmilla had moved to kneel down beside the girl when she had first sunk to the ground and now she sat back a bit to really look at the girl.

She had been kind of pale lately and now seemed to be getting paler by the minute.

And then something occurred to Carmilla.

Laura’s heart wasn’t beating.

At all.

She hadn’t noticed it before because she tried not to pay attention to it. If she paid attention to every human’s heartbeat she would end up driving herself crazy with the sounds of them all but now that she was listening for it, it wasn’t there.

“You haven’t seen the Dean lately, have you?”

Laura looked up at her, “I had a meeting with her about something I can’t remember a couple weeks ago, why?”

“Well, cutie. I’ve got good news and bad news for you.”

“Okay?”

“The good news is I know what’s wrong with you. The bad news is you are about to find out if that blood really is real or not.”


	3. Adventures in Meeting the Parent

“Cupcake, seriously, I don’t see what the big deal is? I know I’m not really the family holiday type but I think I can handle meeting this infamous ‘Papa Hollis’ I’ve heard so much about. He will just be here for like a week and then he will be gone, right?”

Carmilla was lounging on their bed watching her wife frantically pace the length of their bedroom after getting a phone call in which Papa Hollis announced that he was flying out to their house for Christmas.

“No, “ Laura moaned out, never slowing down in her pacing, “you don’t understand. This is very, very bad.”

“Laura, please, relax. I know you’ve talked about how overprotective he is and maybe he won’t like me but surely if he can handle you working for the CIA he can deal with me.”

Laura finally stopped her pacing and looked guiltily at her wife which filled Carmilla with unease.

“Do you really think he’s going to hate meeting me that much?”

Carmilla would never admit it but there may have been a little bit of a tremble in her voice when she asked that and she really hoped that Laura was too frantic to notice but of course, she wasn’t that lucky.

“Oh Carm, no it’s really not that. I’m sure he will love you. It’s just...he may not… um… actually know about you?”

“What do you mean? We’ve known each other for almost seven years and have been married for five of those.”

With a dramatic flop onto the bed and with lots of hand gestures, Laura finally spit out why she was really so worried about this visit.

“If it makes you feel better he doesn't know about the CIA thing either? That’s what started this whole thing in the first place though. He thinks I work for an insurance company and I want him to keep thinking that because he will probably have a heart attack if he knew that I worked for the CIA. It’s not like I wanted to keep him from knowing about you it's just that we met in- um- interesting and classified circumstances and I couldn’t really bring that up without him asking and-”

Carmilla moved down to the foot of the bed so she could lay down facing Laura and put a hand over her mouth to stop her, “whoa okay. Breathe there for a second. What about all the times you’ve flown back to your hometown and seen him before or after the holidays? It never came up? At all?”

“No...not really. A few times he asked but I didn’t know what to say so I just changed the subject and got him talking about Linda.”

Carmilla was quiet for a while, just trying to think things through so Laura just curled up into her wife’s side and held her close. She’d gotten herself into some messes before but this was going to be a hard one to figure out without completely hurting her father’s feelings and causing him to panic over her job.

“Wait, is that why you didn’t complain when we ended up getting married legally but not getting to go through with the ceremony that you had planned? I always thought that was a little weird but then we got stuck in that whole undercover operation thing and I never had time to ask about it.”

“Yeah, I was feeling guilty about not having my dad there anyway so it was an easy way out. Plus that was about the same time he was getting married to Linda anyway. I couldn’t exactly call him up and say ‘oh hey dad guess what? I’m getting married want to fly up for the ceremony?’. He would have freaked.”

Carmilla was silent for a few minutes while Laura continued her internal panic.

“You know what? I think I might have an idea of how to get us out of this mess.”

Laura turned her head so she was grinning up at Carmilla, “I knew there was a reason I married you.”

* * *

  
Carmilla had to pull many, many strings and beg more than she ever had in her life but it was all worth it to see Laura walking down the aisle towards her in her wedding dress.

She probably owed her soul to Lafontaine and Perry who had worked extra hard to set up an entire wedding in just one week so that they could pull this off but even though Sherman Hollis had been slightly upset when Laura told him that she had been seeing someone and things were this serious, he was just happy to be able to be part of the wedding.

Which is what Carmilla had been hoping for.

After knowing each other for seven years and being married for five, there was no way that they could pretend not to be in each other’s lives while Sherman was in town and Laura didn’t want to pretend either, she just wasn’t sure how to go about telling him.

In the car on the way back from the airport, Laura had told him that she had been seeing someone for a few years now but that she hadn’t wanted to mention anything until she was sure they were both serious about each other. He had taken it as well as he could, pumping her for information about Carmilla the entire way home.

Like Laura thought, he was hesitant about Carmilla at first but within a few hours they were joking and laughing like old friends and Laura found herself falling in love even more than she already was even though she didn’t think that was possible.

They had a nice dinner together that night and she announced that Carmilla had proposed to her a while back and that they wanted to take the opportunity to get married while he was in town.

Understandably he was pretty shocked but thankfully after that, everyone was too busy getting ready for him to ask too many questions and Laura was finally able to have the wedding that she had dreamed about long ago.

It wasn’t a huge ceremony, just their friends and those that they could trust to not spill the beans that they had already been married for years before this and thankfully it went off without a hitch thanks to most of the people they knew being CIA as well or other secret keeping government workers.

Everyone was happy and their secret was safe. Another mission successfully completed.

Until...

“So I went by the insurance office today to surprise you with lunch but they told me they had never heard of you. What’s going on, Laura?”


	4. Adventures in Mermaids

Little Mircalla Karnstein had been begging to go with her father on one of his sailing trips since the first time she had seen the impressive ship up close.

Of course, her pleas were always met with stern rejection saying that it was too dangerous for her to go with them because there were pirates out on the seas although later on she heard talk of men believing that having a woman on board would bring bad luck.

On the night of her ninth birthday, the ship had to have a large section replaced because it was wearing down and before the ship maker deemed it okay to stand up to the rough seas, he wanted to take it for a short journey to the next port over just to check for leaks or other issues that might pop up.

Finally, Mircalla got a chance to sail on the ship. She had snuck on board before but that was always when it was docked and wasn’t going to go anywhere for a while. Feeling the sway of the boat as it cut through the water was something she hadn’t even been able to imagine.

She loved it, a lot. She even dreamed of maybe one day being a sailor like her father even though he didn’t seem to be too pleased when she told him about that.

She would do it though. She just knew it.

Her dreams of becoming the first female sailor were cut short rather abruptly when a particularly large wave crashed against the side of the boat, sending her toppling over the edge and into the dark water below.

Swimming was something that she wasn’t really the best at but she had been practicing with her older brother so that she would be safe if she ever did get to go on a ship and until then, she felt confident that she would be able to swim in the deep water if the time ever came.

Except, she hadn’t taken into account that swimming in all the layers of dresses she was always made to wear was a lot different than the swimming clothes she was used to.

Her legs kept getting tangled in the fabric and what fabric wasn’t tangled was floating up in front of her face and she couldn’t figure out which way the surface was.

The next thing she knew, she was sputtering, trying to get the water out of her lungs as she lay on the rough sandy shore of a beach. Once she got as much water out as she could, she could see the pier down the shore a ways where their ship had left from a while back.

“Are you...okay?” A very timid voice spoke up off to the side but when Mircalla looked over, she just saw a rather large rock there.

“Is someone there?” she called out even though her throat was raw from all the salt water and after a few seconds of silence a small girl poked her head out from behind the rock.

“H-Hello.”

Mircalla looked around but the shore where they were at was completely empty with people and there was no way she washed up on the shore, now that she could focus she could remember the feeling of someone dragging her out of the water.

“Did you save me?”

“I did…” The smaller girl was very hesitant and looked like she was going to take off any minute but Mircalla just couldn’t figure out how that could be true.

“But how? You are even tinier than me and I was in the middle of the sea, how did you save me?”

The girl’s face scrunched up like she was trying to make a big decision then the slowly moved her body out from behind the rock and Mircalla couldn’t help but gasp, “you have a tail!”

Immediately the girl panicked and flung herself into the water, quickly disappearing beneath the waves and Mircalla found herself scrambling after her but once she got knee deep in the water, she didn’t dare go any further in.

“I’m sorry for scaring you,” she said to the waves, not expecting the girl to hear her, “I just wanted to talk to you and thank you.”

There was a splash off to her left and then, “you want to talk with me?”

“Of course!”

A little more hesitation, “you aren’t scared of me?”

“No, should I be? Are you going to hurt me?” Mircalla took a step back towards the shore but the girl was quick to reply.

“No, no! I would never! But… are you going to hurt me?”

“You saved me, why would I want to hurt you?”

“Daddy says that humans will try to cut off my tail and have me for dinner if I ever got too close to one…”

“That sounds awful. I won’t do that, I promise. Do you have a name?”

“My name is Laura, what’s your name?”

* * *

 

The two girls spent the next few hours sitting on the shore just talking about everything they could think of. It was a little uncomfortable staying in her wet dress but thankfully it was a warm summer night with a nice breeze that helped keep Mircalla warm.

Eventually, she could see the ship making its way back to the dock and knew she had to head back over there. Her father must have been so worried when he couldn’t find her. He probably thought she was dead.

She didn’t want to leave her new friend but eventually they agreed to meet back up at this same place whenever they could.

“Mircalla, you’re alive! Oh thank the heavens, how did you get back here? What happened?” Her father rushed off the ship once he noticed her standing on the dock and scooped her up into a tight hug.

“A wave crashed into the ship and I fell over but I drifted back towards land and was able to swim to safety. I’ve been waiting here for you.” Less drifting and more being pulled along by her mermaid friend but Laura had made her promise not to tell anyone about her so she had to lie.

“We spent hours looking for you where we thought you might have fallen off but eventually we had to come back. I’m sorry for making you wait so long but I am so glad that you are alive.”  
On the way back home, both father and daughter agreed that maybe it was best they don’t mention her swimming adventure to her mother seeing as she hadn’t really wanted her to go on the ship in the first place.

Mircalla was pretty sure that her father wasn’t going to let her go back on a ship ever again but she suddenly found that she didn’t mind it anymore, she had a new friend who could tell her all about the sea.

* * *

 

Sadly, her friendship with Laura only lasted a year but it was a year she would never forget. They met up at the shore at least once a week if not more but eventually it had to come to an end.

Laura didn’t want to go but she explained that there really weren’t that many of her kind left and they had to keep moving around so they weren’t caught and her father had decided it was time for them to cross the ocean again. If she was older, she might have been able to stay but since she was so young, she had to go with him.

“Will I ever see you again?” Mircalla had tearfully asked when Laura broke the news to her but Laura had shook her head.

“Not for a really long time. We live a lot longer than humans and we won’t be back around here for a few decades, you’ll be old and won’t want anything to do with a little mermaid like me anymore. You might not even remember me.”

“No! I promise! No matter how old I get, I will always remember you and will always want to see you.”

“By the time we come back here I should be old enough to be able to walk on land for a little while. If you are sure you will still want to see me, I will try to find you, okay?”

“I will. I promise.”

* * *

 

It was hard to not see Laura anymore and Mircalla did find herself walking down the shore many times but Laura never appeared again.

Eventually, Mircalla grew up and had to focus on her studies and focus on becoming an respectable young lady so she could find someone nice to settle down with.

On her eighteenth birthday, she was allowed to attend a ball with her soon to be husband.

On that day she died and was swept up into a world of darkness and vampires.

* * *

 

Water was not something that Carmilla liked anymore.

She never forgot about her mermaid friend but thinking about Laura only made her miss her human days even more and made it hard to put aside her feelings and carry out Maman’s orders.

Then she ended up in the coffin of blood and even though it wasn’t water, it reminded her of the dark ocean which reminded her of Laura.

So she was not exactly happy to be on a cruise ship with Maman but they were heading back to Silas for another round of feeding the giant fish god and Maman decided she wanted to sail there.

Carmilla tried to get out of it, she really, really did but you simply did not tell Maman “no”.

So here she was hanging onto the railing of the ship for dear life because Maman wanted them to meet at the dining room near the back of the ship.

Rain was pouring down and waves were crashing against the side of the ship but at least ships were built better now and it didn’t toss nearly as bad as her father’s old ship had.

Still, she wasn’t taking any chances in letting go of the railing.

She did not fancy a dip in the ocean right now. Or ever, really.

Unfortunately, Will had something else in mind.

“Aw, is the little kitty afraid of water?” Will shoved her shoulder pretty hard, intending to just irritate her to help liven up this boring trip they were stuck on but at that time another wave crashed into the ship and it was just enough to cause her grip on the railing to loosen and over board she went for the second time in her life.

She wasn’t wearing a fluffy dress this time but she had smacked her head against the ship on the way down and this time the water was very, very cold. So cold that it was getting to her even though she was a vampire and she found herself losing consciousness very quickly.

Her last thought was that at least she wouldn’t have to go to Silas again.

* * *

 

Carmilla’s eyes opened and she saw what little light was shining from the surface reflecting off of a wave a golden hair as a woman floated in front of her. The woman looked sad but was startled when she noticed Carmilla was looking at her. It looked like the woman was saying something but Carmilla couldn’t quite make out what she was saying under water and soon enough she found her eyes sliding shut again.

* * *

 

The next time she opened her eyes, she was lying on a shore somewhere, coughing the water out of her lungs.

“Are you okay? I mean you probably aren’t because you almost drowned and you didn’t have a heart beat so I thought you were dead and almost didn’t bring you to shore but then you woke up so I carried you here anyway but you still don’t have a heart beat and-”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Carmilla moaned out, interrupting the person who was talking but then she rolled her head to the side and looked at who it was.

She was hiding most of her body behind a rock but Carmilla could see a few of the bright yellow scales poking out around the woman’s hips.

“...Laura?”

Laura shrunk back behind the rock but cautiously poked her head back out, “how do you know my name?”

“Wow and here you made me promise not to forget you but you are the one who forgot me.”

“Mircalla? But how? I mean, I thought it kind of looked like you but it’s been over three hundred years so I thought it couldn’t possibly be. Humans don’t live to be over a hundred, usually.”

“It’s Carmilla now, but yes. It’s me and as you’ve already pointed out I don’t have a heart beat anymore. I’m not human.”

Laura came back out from behind the rock but was still looking at Carmilla suspiciously, “what are you then?”

“A vampire.” There wasn’t a point in lying to the girl. At least this way she could scare her off right away and not have to worry about Maman ever finding out about her.

“Vampires are real? No way.”

“Laura, you are a mermaid. You have to know that other magical people exist.”

Laura huffed, “well yeah, but I’ve never heard of vampires being real. I guess that’s why your family told me you were dead when I went back to see you.”

“You went back?”

“Of course I did, I promised, remember? It was about forty years after we last saw each other but the people living in your old house said you had passed away a long time ago. I was so sad to hear that. I missed you so much but here you are and I had to save you again! You just can’t stay on a ship, can you?”

Carmilla wouldn’t admit it but it made her stomach do a happy little flip knowing that Laura had gone back to see her back then but none of that mattered now.

“I died when I was eighteen. Did you miss the part where I’m a vampire? Swim away in fear or something.”

Laura just blinked at her. “Are you going to suck my blood?”

“Maybe."

“Somehow I doubt you’re going to get a craving for fish blood. Plus, we haven’t seen each other for three hundred years, you aren’t getting rid of me anytime soon.”

Carmilla raised an eyebrow at Laura, “Oh really? I could just walk into the city, what are you going to do, flop after me with that giant tail of yours?”

Laura closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to be concentrating on something.

Then she stood up.

On two human legs.

“What the frilly hell…”

“I told you about this before, or at least I thought I did. Once we are old enough we can take a human form for a while. It helps us trick humans if they see our tails. It’s also useful for going into towns.”

“Oh…”

It’s not that Carmilla didn’t want Laura to tag along, in fact she was very, very happy to have her friend back and happy that Laura wasn’t afraid of her but she was afraid of what Maman might do to Laura when she found out about her.

But that was something they would worry about eventually.

Right now, they were just going to enjoy having each other back in their lives again.


	5. Adventures in Childhood Friends

Ever since Carmilla could remember, she had been friends with Laura. The Hollis’ had been living on Greenbriar road ever since Sherman had unexpectedly inherited the house when his grandfather had passed shortly after Sherman graduated college. A few years after that, he was expecting a baby with his wife, Ellen, when the older couple next door moved out and a new family moved in, the Karnsteins.

Lilita and Derek Karnstein were both also expecting a baby though at the time, Lilita was a lot further along than Ellen and they had moved to a new house to have room for the new baby. The families knew each other as much as your typical neighbors but it didn’t take long for Ellen to realize that Derek was starting work at the same newspaper office she was.

They ended up working together and once both families had their babies, they ended up spending a lot of time together letting the girl’s play.

Lilita had a company to run, it wasn’t that big at the time but it took up a lot of her time so after having Carmilla, she mostly let Derek take care of her which was fine with him.

Most of the time Lilita and Derek’s schedules worked out so that one was always home to watch Carmilla but on the times when it didn’t, Sherman ended up watching both of them which he didn’t mind. He worked from home, doing web design and any other computer related freelance work that he could get his hands on so he was almost always available to watch the girls.

So, Laura was just always a constant in Carmilla’s life. They fought pretty often, but usually over petty things and they always made up eventually and they were always there for each other.

They were there for each other when a boy at school pushed Laura into the mud and ruined her favorite dress. They were there for each other when Lilita insisted that Carmilla start learning to play the piano at the age of six and she just couldn’t get the hang of it.

And they were there for each other when Ellen and Derek were carpooling back from work late one night together and a drunk driver crashed into them.

Things weren’t the same after that but they both still had each other even if they were both missing one parent.

Sherman did the best he could, thankfully by the time that happened, he still worked from home but was hired by an actual company who sent him the work they needed done and it paid well enough he didn’t have to worry about leaving the house to work and leaving Laura on her own.

They got through everything together but now, Carmilla wasn’t quite so sure if things were going to be the same.

Because now, Laura had a girlfriend and Carmilla hated it.

Danny Lawrence has been the bane of her existance since she transferred to their school last year and immediately took a liking to Laura.

It wasn’t that she was jealous, absolutely not, it was just that it was really interfering with her and Laura’s time together. There were no repressed squishy feelings here. Before they used to do everything together but now it was them plus Danny and she hated feeling like a third wheel. Sometimes even a fifth wheel if the ginger twins tagged along.

Carmilla herself had had flings over the years but she never let it come between her and Laura.

Not even that whole drama with Elle in freshman year got between her and Laura.

So she was just slightly irritated that now Laura was letting this giant bean pole come between them.

And now Brad, the guy who her mom had remarried a few years back, was talking about relocating for his job and how it would be so nice for them all to get out of this town.

She just about to start her last year of highschool, she was not moving. No way. This was a ridiculous little town but she loved it and didn’t want to leave some particular people in it. This wasn’t the first time he had talked about it and it never happened before so she wasn’t too worried about it but it was enough to add more fuel to her irritation fire so she did what she always did when she couldn’t handle things at home anymore, she went to Laura’s.

It was a saturday and there was nothing Laura loved more than having a nice relaxing saturday in her pjs while binge watching some ridiculous show on netflix. Very rarely had Carmilla ever gotten her to actually leave her house on a saturday so she was pretty sure Laura would be there.

Maybe they could finally get some time to themselves without the ginger giant.

She might even be willing to watch Doctor Who with her if that’s what it took.

By the time she was twelve, Sherman had gotten tired of having to answer the door every time Carmilla came over so she had been given a key to the house. She slid that same well worn key into the lock and walked into the rather quiet house. Laura must be watching shows in her own room for once instead of camped out in the living room.

“Laura? Are you back already?”

Or not.

“Um, sorry. It’s just me. Is Laura not here?” She called out as she headed to the kitchen where his voice had come from.

“No, she went to see a movie with Danny, she didn’t tell you?”

He was in the middle of making a sandwich for lunch but paused so he could turn and look at Carmilla.

“No, she didn’t mention anything. Sorry for barging in.”

He gave her what she liked to call the signature “Papa Hollis” look usually reserved for Laura when she’s being unreasonable about something.

“Carmilla, you know you are welcome here anytime whether Laura is here or not. Have you eaten lunch yet?”

Lying to Sherman was never something she had been able to master, “no, I haven’t.”

“Have a seat then.”

And so, not for the first time in her life, she found herself having lunch with Laura’s father.

She was almost finished with her sandwich when she got a text from Laura.

 **Laura 1:05pm:** Oh my god Moana is so good, you have to go see it. Maybe we can go tomorrow? What are you up to now?

Carmilla took a quick picture of Sherman with his mouth full of sandwich and sent it to Laura.

 **Carmilla 1:06pm:** Nothing much, just having lunch with your father.

* * *

 

Laura snorted at her phone causing Danny to look at her strangely as they left the theater.

“Did you find another funny cat picture?”

“Oh no, it’s just my dad’s face. He’s eating a sandwich and there's just bbq sauce everywhere.” Laura turned the phone around so that she could show Danny but the only thing Danny focused on was who sent the picture.

“Why is Carmilla sending you pictures of your own dad? That’s a little weird.”

“It’s not weird, we’ve known each other literally our whole lives,” Laura said sharply.

Danny didn’t say anything else about it but things were a little tense between the two of them so when Danny asked if they should grab something to eat somewhere, Laura made up an excuse that she needed to get home by a certain time so Danny agreed to drive her home.

“Dad, I’m home!” she called out as she walked in the door and headed to her father’s office since she didn’t see him in the living room and as usual, he was in there working on whatever project he had to do for work.

“Hey, pumpkin, did you have fun? Was the movie good?”

“It was really, really good. So good that I think I’m going to drag Carmilla out to go see it again tomorrow.”

“That’s good, she seemed kind of down about something earlier so it would be good for her, I think.”

“That can’t be good. Did she mention anything?”

He gave her one of those “are you kidding?” looks. “Of course not, it’s Carmilla we are talking about. The same girl who walked around with a splinter in her foot for hours when she was eight because she didn’t want to tell anyone about it.”

“Point taken. Did she go home? I’m going to go find out what’s going on even if I have to pull it out of her. She’s been kind of distant lately.”

“I don’t think so. She went up to your room after we ate lunch and I haven’t heard her come back down yet.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll see you later then.”

Laura headed out of the study and up the stairs where the bedrooms were and found Carmilla sprawled across her bed, flipping through channels on the TV.

Carmilla didn’t seem to notice her so Laura did what any good friend would do and immediately flopped onto the bed too, effectively startling Carmilla who ended up falling off the bed.  
“First you abandon me to go see a movie with Xena and now you are trying to kill me. Some friend you are.”

“I am the greatest friend, thank you very much and I did not abandon you.”

“Whatever you say, cupcake, whatever you say.”

* * *

 

Eventually, after plenty of whining and begging and gentle friendly threatening, Carmilla finally spit out that Brad was talking about moving again and that’s why she wasn’t happy. Laura assured her that he was just talking big again and eventually Carmilla cheered up and let Laura suck her into a Doctor Who marathon.

Unfortunately, a week later, it was Lilita that announced that they were moving.

Carmilla took it as well as to be expected meaning that as soon as Lilita said it, she ran out the door without even bothering to change out of her pjs and ran to Laura’s house.

Without saying a word to Sherman who was in the living room, she ran up to Laura’s room and just collapsed on the bed sobbing about how she didn’t want to leave and how Lilita wasn’t even giving her a choice in this.

Lilita had announced the news over breakfast meaning that it was way too early for Carmilla to normally be up but Lilita insisted so it didn’t take her long to fall asleep after exhausting herself crying. Once she was deep asleep, Laura slipped away from where she had been holding her friend and snuck downstairs to tell her father what was going on.

For once, Sherman didn’t say much and just told Laura to stay with Carmilla because she was going to need someone there when she woke up from her nap so Laura went back upstairs and curled up beside Carmilla, falling into a restless sleep too.

When they woke up a few hours later, there was a note from Sherman on the door asking them to come downstairs when they woke up.

“I had a talk with your mother while you were asleep and I’m afraid I may have used a few choice words but I got the point across that you needed to have a say in this too since it is going to greatly affect your life. They are still moving, your mother has been wanting to get out of this town and expand her business for a while now but you have a choice. You can go with them,” Carmilla started shaking her head, “or you can stay here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you can stay here. In this house. With us.”

Carmilla immediately objected to it, she didn’t want to be a burden on them but after an entire week of trying to talk her into it, Lilita started packing up stuff in their house to move, Carmilla finally gave in.

She was going to be living with Laura and her father at least until they went off to college.

She couldn’t wait to rub this in Danny’s face


	6. Adventures in Running Out

“Laura, please. You can’t stay mad at me forever.”

There was only silence as a response.

“I said I was sorry, what more do you want from me? It’s not like I can fix this, we are snowed in for maybe the rest of our lives the way this storm is going.”

More silence.

“Lauraaa,” Carmilla’s tone had taken on a whining quality now as she stood in front of her girlfriend who was currently sitting on the couch, stubbornly refusing to look her in the eye.

“Ugh fine, be mad. I don’t care.”

She did care. She cared very much that Laura was mad at her but nothing was budging the stubborn human.

It was time to bring out the big guns.

* * *

 

“What in the world did Carmilla do that was so bad that she came over to our place and pretty much forced me to come over here and talk to you while she sulked on our couch,” Lafontaine said loudly as they abruptly pushed open the door to the apartment Laura and Carmilla were renting.

“She did something absolutely unforgivable this time, Laf.”

“Oh really? Worse than stealing girls for her goddess mother who was feeding them to a fish god under our old school?”

Laura nodded her head.

“Worse than when she nearly got you killed because she didn’t want to save you from the crazy gingerbread lady because she wanted to make a point?”

“Even worse than that.”

Lafontaine was starting to get a little worried at this point, “even worse than when we got caught up in another crazy evil plot in your last year of college and Carmilla nearly got us killed because she wouldn’t admit that she couldn’t do something with her puny human strength now?”

Laura threw up her hands in frustration. “Yes! Worse than anything she has ever done. Worse than any destruction she caused with Mattie, worse than anything.”

“Okay, okay. Calm down, frosh. Just tell me what she did that’s so bad and we will figure out what to do about it.”

* * *

 

Lafontaine walked back over to the apartment they shared with Perry in a little bit of a daze.

They walked past Perry and Carmilla who were sitting on the couch and walked straight into the kitchen to grab something out of their pantry.

When they walked back out, they pushed the box into Carmilla’s hands and then sunk down on the couch themselves.

“Take it and go. I don’t even want to look at the two of you again after that for like a week.”

Carmilla looked down at the box in her hands then back up at Laf. “I guess you are good for something.”

“Out. You two are ridiculous. I really thought the world was ending. Again.”

A small snort escaped Carmilla, “it’s Laura. Someone drinking the last of her hot cocoa is the end of the world.”


	7. Adventures in Judging People

Carmilla hated her job at Walmart. It really, really sucked but it paid the bills so she stuck with it. Most days were horrible but sometimes things happened to make it better.

Like when a certain pretty girl came into the store. 

This girl wore skinny jeans and plaid in the winter but during the summer she was almost always wearing some type of pretty flowy sundress and normally, Carmilla would stay far, far away from such a good girl type like that but there was just something that drew her to this girl.

Unfortunately, she had been seeing this girl come into the store for about a year now and didn’t even know anything about her yet because somehow, the girl never checked out in her lane.

Occasionally Carmilla would see her while she was walking through the store but it never failed that some other customer came along or something else had to be done right that minute. One of these days though, she was going to talk to that girl.

Their town was small and unfortunately Walmart was the go to place to shop- as in it was basically the only place to shop- and while she saw that girl a lot at the store, she never saw her around town which was very, very strange because unfortunately she was on first name basis with half the town.

But no one knew the mysterious girl in the sundresses.

* * *

 

It was late one night and Carmilla was about to fall asleep standing at her station, she hadn’t had any customers in a little while and really was considering if she could get away with sleeping against her station when she heard the voice of an angel speak.

“Hello…”

It was the girl in the sundress. She had finally ended up in her checkout lane.

She had been waiting for this moment forever, she had practiced what she was going to say for this exact moment.

“..Hi…”

Okay so, master of words she was not right now but it was like three in the morning. She’d never seen the sundress girl here so late at night. She wasn’t really prepared.

Thankfully, the girl just started unloading her cart onto the belt and as Carmilla started scanning items in it gave her time to think about what she was going to say to the girl to make her fall head over heels for her.

After scanning the fourth package of cookies, Carmilla opened her mouth again, “did you find everything you were looking for?” Generic but it was a good start, probably.

The girl seemed startled before continuing to put things on the conveyor belt. “Oh, yeah. I did. Thanks.”

“That’s good. Bit late to be shopping, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I ran out of some stuff…”

The girl put the last thing on the belt and then pushed her cart forward so she was right across from Carmilla now, waiting for Carmilla to finish ringing up her stuff and suddenly Carmilla couldn’t figure out what to say next so she focused more on scanning her items.

Cookies.  
Large knife.  
Salt.  
Raw meat.  
Red Candle.  
White Candle.  
Biggest wooden ladle she had ever seen.  
Cookies.  
Chalk.  
More Meat.  
Desiccated spiders- she paused slightly at that but honestly, it was walmart, nothing they sold surprised her anymore.

She was slightly concerned about why this bright and sunny girl was buying them though. But it would be rude to ask.

More candles.  
Tiny jars.  
Incense.  
So much meat.

“You ran out of meat at three am? Are you having a BBQ party or something?” She wasn’t supposed to ask, she really wasn’t but she couldn’t help it. It slipped out.

“Oh no, it’s for a spell.”

“Oh, okay.”

Carmilla scanned another package of cookies before she paused as what the girl said sunk in.

So the pretty girl in the sundress was crazy. Of course she was.

The girl just looked at her funny. “Either you know something about magic yourself or you don’t believe me at all. Which is it?”

“Sorry, sundance. I thought you were cute but I don’t really go for the crazy ones. Your total is $76.89.”

The girl’s face scrunched up adorably as she swiped her card to pay for her items. Once she stuck her card back into her purse, she quickly looked around then back at Carmilla.

With a few muttered words, a tiny ball of fire appeared in the middle of her hand and suddenly Carmilla was questioning everything she believed in.

“My name is Laura, by the way.”

The girl walked away with a smile on her face and Carmilla made a vow to find out everything she could about this girl.

If magic was real, maybe the girl wasn’t crazy and maybe she still had a chance.


	8. Adventures in First Apartments

“It’s beautiful.” 

Carmilla let her bag slip to the floor and then looked at Laura. “You sure having your heart ripped out didn’t affect your eyesight too? This place is a dump.”

“You’re just being a sour puss because you had to climb up four flights of stairs with your new human lungs,” Laura turned to smile brightly at Carmilla who was looking a little worse for wear after all those stairs, “sure it needs some work and the only piece of furniture we own is an airbed but it’s our crappy little apartment. In Paris! We did it!”

“Yeah, I guess we did.” 

Carmilla was still adjusting to her new humanness otherwise she would probably be just as excited as Laura but god, she was out of shape. All she could think about was getting the airbed blown up and collapsing on it for a few days.

Luckily for her, they didn’t exactly have anything else to do so Laura was okay with that plan. The bed was cheap but it did come with it's own little electric pump so after just a few minutes it was blown up and they were stretched out on it, covering up with the blanket they found on sale at the same place they got the bed and a few groceries.

Sherman wasn’t exactly happy about Laura’s seemingly sudden decision to move to Paris for the time being but after everything they had been through, he just wanted to see her happy so he had given them what money he could and sent them on their way.

Plane tickets were expensive though so after they paid for the tickets, paid the ridiculous fees for their luggage being overweight because they stuffed them full, and paid for the deposit and first month’s rent for their apartment, they were getting pretty low on cash. 

But, they would make it work. Carmilla had managed to get them both a couple of job interviews tomorrow and hopefully they could start bringing in money soon so they could make their tiny little apartment home.

Laura was snoring softly on her side of the bed, hogging most of the blanket they had bought so Carmilla was laying there staring at the peeling wallpaper on the walls and she couldn’t think of a time when she ever felt happier than she was in that moment.

She was finally free to live her life like she wanted.

Or at least she would get to if she didn’t end up freezing to death first because her girlfriend wouldn’t stop hogging the only blanket they had bought so far.


	9. Adventures in Hot Weather

Laura had never really paid that much attention to her neighbors even though from her bedroom window she got a perfect view of that house.

She only knew the family had a few little kids because occasionally you could hear them playing loudly in the backyard but then u-haul trucks started coming in and that family moved out.

It didn't take long before trucks were moving another family in and shortly after that some construction started in that backyard and Laura found herself fascinated by it.

It took a while but eventually she figured out they were building an in ground pool. For over a month, she watched them make slow progress on that pool.

And finally, in the middle of summer, it was completed.

* * *

  
“It’s so hot,” Laura moaned to herself as she sat on her bed with a fan blowing directly at her. Their air conditioner was working but Sherman Hollis was very strict about not touching that thermostat from whatever money saving temperature he had decided on.

She was going to melt at this rate if she didn’t do something soon.

Then she had an idea.

Within just a few minutes, she had changed into her swimsuit and relocated to her backyard after digging up the old sprinkler she used to play with as a kid.

She applied some sunscreen because the last thing she wanted on this hot day was to be sunburned too and then turned on the water to enjoy some nice cool fun.

Except, a sprinkler was a lot more exciting when you were six. At sixteen, it was a little bit different.

It was cool and that was better than nothing but the water didn’t shoot up near as high as it seemed to when she was little so she ended up just laying on the grass as the water washed over her.

It just wasn’t what she really wanted.

As she laid there, she found herself staring at the fence that connected her and her neighbor and found she could see just a little glint of the water through one of the cracks in the fence.

God, what she wouldn’t give to take a little dip in that pool right now.

But she wouldn’t. She was a good girl.

She was not going to trespass on her neighbor’s property.

In a little bit of a daze, she found herself turning off the sprinkler and using a nearby chair to poke her head over the fence to get a better look at the pool. Maybe if she just looked at it and imagined she was inside it, she would feel cooler.

Unfortunately for her, she found herself staring at a girl who was staring at her too.  
“Gah.” Laura lost her balance on the chair and tumbled to the ground, thankfully landing on the soft grass and not the nearby concrete patio.

She laid there for a minute, trying to get over being embarrassed at being caught staring longingly at their pool and when she opened her eyes again, she found a head staring at her over the fence.

“What were you doing?”

“Nothing…”

The girl raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? Because you are in your swimsuit and it looks to me like you were thinking about sneaking into my pool.”

“Oh no, no. Of course not, I would never do that. I was just-” Laura was flailing around, gesturing wildly with her hands but the girl interrupted her.

“Because if you were I would say that you could come join me.”

“-using the sprinkler and… Huh?”

“You heard me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure. It’s hot out and you’re cute, why not?”

The girl disappeared from the top of the fence but Laura heard her calling out that she was going to open the gate so Laura quickly got up off the grass and headed to the gate before the girl changed her mind.

Once inside, it didn’t take long for Laura to walk down the stairs of the pool and sink down into the nice cool water.

“Oh my god this is so nice. Thank you. I really thought I was going to melt over there. My dad refuses to turn up the air.. Oh, I’m Laura. What’s your name?”

“Carmilla.” The girl slowly walked to the edge of the pool and started walking down the steps and Laura realized just how nice the girl looked in the black bikini she was wearing.

When Laura started blushing and had to dunk her head under the water to make it go away, she started realizing maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

Especially when the girl caught her staring and gave her a suggestive wink.

Yup, definitely a bad idea.


	10. Adventures in Potion Shops 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation of Chapter 18 of last years Adventures of Carmilla. You don't really have to have read that one to read this though, it would just add some more backstory to this one.

Of all the crazy ideas Carmilla had had in the past, this was one of the crazier ones.

What had made her think that a vampire working in a potion shop in the middle of an old fashioned witch village was a good idea?

“Carm, can you come help me with something?” Laura called out as she walked past with an armful of wiggling ingredients.

Oh right, that was why. She just couldn’t stay away from the girl.

She was finally free to do what she wanted after over three hundred years of serving Maman and she had decided to come back and pay off a debt at a potion shop because of a pretty girl.

“What do you need?”

“Can you take this to the Sanvers’ house down the road? You don’t have to give it to anyone just knock on the door and leave it on their doorstep. They know what it’s for and have already paid but I need to get this potion brewing.”

Carmilla groaned, “do I have to?”

“It’s either that or you can start this potion but the last time you tried to make one it blew up and you nearly lost your eyebrows. Take your pick.”

“Fine. I’ll deliver your package.”

“Thank you!”

Carmilla really, really didn’t want to do it but once she agreed Laura skipped over and gave her a kiss on the check while pushing the neatly wrapped bottle into her hands and that made it a little better.

They had only had that one dinner date and Carmilla hadn’t really expected things to go any further than that but then Laura did things like that and it gave her hope.

Usually that hope was dashed once she walked out the door of the potion shop though because it was clear the village did not want her there. She’d even been worried when she first started working off her debt there that she would cause people to stop coming to buy things at the shop but it was clear that the Hollis’ shop was the best around and no matter how much people didn’t like a vampire working there, there wasn’t any other trustworthy place around for them to get their medicine and potions from.

So they just kept to themselves and talked about them behind their backs where they thought Carmilla couldn’t hear them.

According to Laura, threatening them would just make it worse though so Carmilla just pulled her hood up on her coat and made her way through the cold air to deliver her package.

It was cold out, even for a vampire so Carmilla ended up using a little bit of vampire speed to hurry up and get back. She wanted to just go in and hopefully curl up on her bed that Laura had magicked up for her on the other side of Laura’s room the first day she had showed up to work and warm up underneath all her soft blankets but when she got back, there were a few people crowding around Sherman Hollis in the middle of the shop.

“How can you let that-that thing live with you?”

“We don’t even feel safe coming into your shop anymore, you need to get rid of it.”

Well it was nice while it lasted, maybe she could at least stop by and see Laura sometime. If only they had waited until after winter though, it was really cold out there.

Carmilla was just about to head up the stairs and pack what little belongings she had when a sharp voice rang out, effectively cutting off the yelling of the villagers, “enough!”

Laura stepped out from the back room and made sure she had everyone’s attention before continuing on.

“Carmilla has done nothing to harm anyone since she has been here, you have no right to demand that she leave. She’s working hard to pay off a debt she owes here, she didn’t have to do that. She could have taken off and we would have never gotten paid back for what she needed but here she is trying to pay it back even with all of you trying to stare her down and making her feel unwelcome here.”

“But she’s dangerous! What if she bites us?”

Laura just gave them an incredulous look and then walked over to a rather large plant that had taken up root in a corner of the store and refused to budge. Predictably, as soon as she got near enough the plants head shot out and chomped down on her hand much to the villagers horror.

“You were all already afraid to come into the shop because of George here and he is much, much more likely to bite you than Carmilla so if you want to talk about her leaving, you better start trying to get George out first otherwise I don’t want to hear it because he is a lot worse than her.”

A few of the villagers started eyeing George as Laura started prying his mouth open to free her hand. “Good luck if you try though, he’s a stubborn one. We tried to get rid of him for years but nothing worked.”

Laura headed to the back room to get some salve to put on her hand, ignoring the screams of a particularly hot headed villager who decided to try and deal with George.

“You didn’t have to do that, you know. They aren’t going to stop complaining about me. I should just go.” Carmilla said as she followed behind Laura and then helped her bandage her hand.

“I don’t care how much they complain. You aren’t leaving,” Laura said strongly causing Carmilla to pause in her bandage wrapping so Laura hurried and continued, “unless you want to, of course. But it better be your own decision and not theirs.”

“It would be easier on you and your dad.”

“No it wouldn’t. Who would we get to deliver all of our packages?” Laura smiled brightly at her but Carmilla just frowned.

“You know what I meant. Your dad is going to have enough of dealing with them eventually.”

“Probably, but he’s been dealing with them for a long time. Hey, have you noticed something? About the people in this village?”

“That they hate me?”

“That’s true but there’s also something else they don’t like.”

Carmilla tried to think about it but nothing really stuck out.

“I guess I haven’t really paid that much attention to them.”

“They don’t exactly like me either.”

Carmilla couldn’t help it. She snorted. “Yeah right, how could they not like such a happy ray of sunshine.”

“They like to think we are still in the dark ages. They think we are all so much better than the humans but most houses around here won’t use electricity because they think it’s the devil’s magic or something and god forbid you mention the internet to them.”

Actually, now that she thought about it, the potion shop was probably the most modern place in the village.

“How does that even work? We aren’t that far from a big city.”

“Magic barrier keeps humans from finding this place and this house uses magic to create electricity. It’s really simple but they won’t do it. Oh our internet does come from the big city thogh. We have to pay a ton for a decent hot spot out here since they can’t really run any kind of lines out here.”

“Oh…”

* * *

 

After that, things calmed down in the village for a little while and Carmilla started paying more attention to the way the villagers acted not only around her but around Laura as well. They were friendly enough to Laura but there was always some wariness too.

It was another couple weeks before she realized that not only did they not like her because she was a vampire and used a smartphone but they didn’t like her because they thought she was dating Laura.

Which she mentioned to Laura on their way back from lunch one day because people were staring again.

“Seriously? I always wondered if they were against me being gay but they never said anything to my face.” Laura stopped walking and a huge grin spread across her face.

“Why don’t we give them something to really talk about?”

Before Carmilla could really process what Laura meant, Laura’s hands were on her cheeks and their lips were connected.

It was over in an instant and she could heard how scandalized the villagers were but Laura just giggled, grabbed her hand, and pulled her along back to the shop.

Maybe there really was hope for them after all.


	11. Adventures in Laptop Repairs

“Hey, Laur? I know I’m the one who is supposed to be up front today but your regular is here again and I am not dealing with her again. Not after last time.” Lafontaine stuck their head into the back room where Laura was carefully putting the finishing touches on a custom computer.

“Seriously? Again? We are a computer repair shop that occasionally makes custom builds, we shouldn’t _have_ regular customers,” Laura sighed before getting up and heading to the front of the shop. Her “regular customer” did not like to be kept waiting.

If the deep scowl on the woman’s face didn’t set her apart from everyone else in the small store, her entirely black outfit, complete with what seemed to be her signature leather pants, certainly did.

“Carmilla, what can I do for you today?” Laura smiled brightly but it was forced, it was company policy to be nice to all customers but this woman just rubbed her the wrong way. She clearly didn’t know how to take care of electronics.

Like at all.

“Well,” she drawled out, handing a battered laptop over to Laura who quickly discovered it was still… dripping? Of course, it was. “There was a small… incident involving my coffee.”

“I can see that.”

Laura took a minute to look over the laptop but she knew it wasn’t something she could fix right away unlike most of the issues that Carmilla usually had. This was going to be a job.

“This thing is soaked through. I’m not sure if it’s really going to be worth fixing at this point, I’m going to have to replace a lot of damaged parts. Are you sure you don’t just want to get a new one?” she asked but she knew it was useless, the woman had an odd attachment to this one.

“I don’t want a new one, just fix what you have to.”

“The screen might be okay but I am seriously going to have replace just about everything in here. I know you like this laptop but is it really going to be the same if I have to replace all it’s insides?”

Carmilla just smiled at her, “it doesn’t matter. I just want you to fix it.”

“It’s going to cost almost as much as a new one, maybe even more,” she tried one last time but she knew the answer to that too.

“Money isn’t an issue. I just want you to fix it, cupcake.”

“Okay, if you are sure. This isn’t going to be a quick fix though, I’m going to have to keep it for a while, is there any information you need off here? I can put the harddrive into another computer if you need something from it, assuming that isn’t ruined too.”

“It’s fine. I don’t need anything off of it right now. Anything important is on my work computer,” Carmilla said with a shrug, following Laura as she moved over to the desk to write a work slip for the computer.

Laura had to physically bite her tongue to keep from asking about the state of her work computer and how well it fared if this is what happened to her personal computer.

All of Carmilla’s information was in the system from all the other times she had been in so after quickly confirming that nothing had changed since the last time she had been in- which was last week but she was still required to ask about any information changes- Carmilla headed out the door and Laura took the computer to the back where she set about taking it apart and drying off what she could. Spills were the worst and she knew hardly anything was going to be salvageable so after she set it out to dry, she finished up the custom computer from earlier, got that on the way to its new owner and set about doing everything else that was not Carmilla’s computer.

Eventually, Lafontaine poked their head back into the backroom again once they had a break in customers, “so what happened to her computer this time?”

“Coffee. Apparently. How someone could be so careless with something as important as a computer, I will never know.”

Laura shook her head and Lafontaine arched an eyebrow at their friend, “seriously? Do you not see it? I know exactly why this happens.”

“Care to enlighten me then? Because I sure don’t know.”

“She’s clearly doing this on purpose.”

Laura looked at Lafontaine like she couldn’t believe those words had come out of their mouth.

“Why would someone hurt an electronic on purpose?”

“Wow, you really don’t see it do you? She likes you, duh!”

Laura’s hand jerked violently as the words registered in her head, sending the screwdriver she was using flying across the small room, thankfully not hitting anything too important.

“I think you’ve taken one too many science experiments to the head, Laf. There no way Ms. Dark and Broody is interested in me.”

“Just keep telling yourself that, Hollis, but there's no other reason. She’s in here practically every week and always asks for you. Never wants to talk to me or anyone else. Just you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

* * *

 

Carmilla being interested in her? Hah, that had to be the most ridiculous thing she had heard all week. So ridiculous, in fact, that she just couldn’t stop thinking about it even after she got home.

And still thinking about it the next day and the day after that.

Three days later she had finally managed to stop thinking about it but then she had to call Carmilla and tell her that it was going to be at least a week before she could return her computer because she needed to order some special parts that they didn’t have in stock. She tried to mention again that a new computer would be better and she would have it sooner but Carmilla refused again and told her to take whatever time she needed to fix it and it got her thinking about what Lafontaine said again.

There was no way Carmilla was interested in her but her attachment to her computer was a little weird. It wasn’t even going to be the same one anymore and she could have gotten her a new computer for probably half as much as it was going to cost to gather all these parts.

It was one mystery she was probably never going to solve.

* * *

 

“So we just got a really weird phone call,” Lafontaine announced as they walked into the back room where Laura was working hard to pry apart a very stubborn computer tower case.

“What do you mean by ‘weird’?”

“Well, you know that really massive tech company in the middle of the city, Morgan Tech? They apparently need our help?”

Laura paused in her work to look at Lafontaine strangely. “Why would a giant tech company need our help?”

“I’m not sure, something about how their IT department has an issue they can’t figure out and they need a fresh set of eyes to look at it.”

It was certainly weird, they were just a tiny little shop in the city, but they promised to pay for her time even if she couldn’t fix their problem so Laura packed up a little bit early and headed over to the massive building.

“Hi I’m Laura Hollis, I’m with-” Laura didn’t even get to finish what she was saying before the receptionist behind the massive front desk was handing her a pass with her name on it along with a map of where she was supposed to go.

“This just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Laura mumbled to herself as she tried her best to navigate the huge building. How did they already know her name? She had assumed they just found their website or something while looking for people and her name wasn’t listed on the site.

“Oh good, you’re here. Okay so here’s the deal…” As soon as she stepped into the IT room she was swept up in a flurry of activity as the IT department showed her what was going on. The entire group of them looked like they were extremely run down and tired of the problem they were having.

Laura really liked to work more with computer hardware than software but most of the problems she ended up getting in at her shop had to do with software so she had gotten pretty good at it.

She absolutely did not feel competent enough to solve a giant tech company’s problems though.

But in the end, she did. Turns out a computer in their system was set up to try and steal company secrets and that the malware they were using was super buggy and causing all sorts of seemingly random problems as well.

“You don’t know how much you just saved us, Laura,” Betty, one of the IT members told her once she finished explaining what all she had found.

“We kept going about it the wrong way, thinking that it had to be coming from outside somewhere because all computers are routinely monitored for that kind of stuff here but it looks like the person using that computer did it on purpose so we will take care of it from here. Before you leave though, the boss wanted to thank you for your hard work. You can find her on the top floor, she should be expecting you.”

Going to see the CEO of a giant tech company was not something that Laura really wanted to do but she couldn’t be rude and just leave yet- plus she probably wouldn’t get paid if she did- so she headed back to the elevators and up to the top floor.

The elevators opened up to a small lobby that had another receptionist sitting at a desk.

“Who are you? Do you have an appointment? No one gets in to see Ms. Karnstein without an approved appointment.” The woman had a bored but sharp tone to her voice letting Laura know she meant business.

“Umm, I don’t have an appointment but I was told that she wanted to see me? I’m Laura Hollis and I-” Once again Laura was cut off once she said her name. What was it with people here doing that?

“Right, sorry,” the woman looked almost frightened now, like she had said the wrong thing, “you can go on in. She’s waiting for you. Very last door at the end.”

This place was so weird, she couldn’t wait to get back to her little shop.

She walked through the double doors behind the woman and found herself in a hallway with a bunch of doors and headed to the end. Something was bugging her but she couldn’t quite but her finger on it. Like something seemed familiar.

Something the receptionist had said.

Before Laura could figure out what it was, she found herself at the very last door and took a deep breath before knocking.

“Enter.”

The voice was muffled through the door but Laura found herself gasping as she recognized the voice anyway.

“You!” Laura found herself half yelling as she pushed open the door and confirmed what she thought.

There was Carmilla sitting in a very impressive chair behind a very impressive desk.

Carmilla “computer wrecker” Karnstein.

Karnstein. She should have realized it then.

Carmilla just raised an eyebrow at her and Laura realized that maybe she shouldn’t have barged in here quite so rudely since apparently Carmilla was a very important person in charge of a tech company.

“I guess that’s why everyone knew who I was.”

“Yes, I told them to expect you. I had a feeling you could fix our problem. I hope you didn’t have any problems getting in?”

“Not at all and it wasn’t too hard, just something your people were overlooking. Wait a minute, you have your own IT department here, why are you always bringing stuff to me?”

Carmilla shrugged. “The first time was truly an accident and they were busy dealing with a new upgrade we were implementing company wide. I figured it would be faster to have someone else do it.”

“What about all the other times?”

“Maybe I just liked seeing your adorable scrunched up face when you are mad.”

“Agh! Then just ask me out for coffee like a normal person! There was no need to abuse electronics like that. Those poor things didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”

Carmilla seemed a little startled but quickly recovered. “Then how about we get out of here and get that coffee then? Or perhaps dinner since it’s getting late?”

Laura was definitely not expecting that response. “What? I-uh… Sure?”

“Excellent.”

Laura followed Carmilla all the way down to the parking garage and then found herself in Carmilla’s fancy car heading to a no doubt fancy restaurant.

Apparently Lafontaine was right.

She was never going to hear the end of this from them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: I've had this one half written for like over a year now but never could finish it.


	12. Adventures in Christmas

Carmilla never really celebrated Christmas much, even before the “family drama” of last summer. Occasionally her mom would end up getting them each a present but it was just for show, it was hardly anything she ever wanted and was usually tied into something that she wanted them to do.

Like one year, she bought Carmilla an expensive violin and wasn’t happy when Carmilla didn’t want to take lessons at the age of eight.

The only times she ever really got toys that she actually liked was from Laura and her family when they used to play together.

That was a long time ago though and there was no use dwelling on the past now. At least this year, she could actually spend Christmas in peace. Alone- since Maman had officially disowned her- but in peace.

Unfortunately, that meant she did have to brave the last minute shoppers to get some food to fill her new apartment’s fridge other wise she wasn’t going to have anything to eat for Christmas.

“Well I’ll be, Carmilla? Is that you?” She’d been back in her hometown for only a few days now after being away for over ten years so she wasn’t expecting anyone to recognize her but apparently someone did.

She had paused when the voice called out so it gave the man the chance to walk around her so he could see her face. “It is you! How have you been? How long have you been back in town?”

Something seemed to occur to the man. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you even remember me? It has been a while.”

Of course she did. He was one of the only two people she liked in this town, she just didn’t think he would remember her.

“There’s no way I could forget you, Mr. Hollis.”

She had only come back to this town because it was really the only other place she had lived in in her life and she did not want to stay in the city Maman had forced them to move to years ago so she ended up back here. Her plan was to just get her feet back under her after abruptly leaving her family and then she would likely go explore and find a brand new city to settle in.

She had not planned on spilling the entire story to her childhood best friend’s father two days before Christmas in the middle of a very busy store.

But he had a face you just couldn’t lie to.

He listened to her story carefully and agreed that it was best that she had gotten away from her mother. He even mentioned how he wished he could have done more for her when she was a child but after they moved Lilita had made sure they had no way of keeping in touch with her.

It was sweet, she had thought all these years that Laura and her father had completely forgotten about her when she moved even though they had been so close before but apparently that wasn’t the case.

“Wait, what are you doing for Christmas then?”

She hesitated just a second too long and his eyes went wide and suddenly she found herself agreeing to spend Christmas with the Hollis’.

So much for her peaceful, quiet Christmas.

* * *

 

This was stupid, she shouldn’t have done this. She should have just said no and just stayed home.

And she definitely should not have bought the presents that she did.

She hadn’t seen these people in over ten years. She was pretty sure that Sherman would still like making models like he did before and would likely still like the present she got him but Laura was a different story.

Why she had thought to get her a TARDIS mug was beyond her. Laura had loved Doctor Who when they were younger but she probably didn’t like it anymore. She was probably going to laugh at her but maybe she would at least appreciate that Carmilla had remembered what she used to like.

Maybe she could just leave the presents and sneak off back home without them knowing. Say she was sick or something.

“Carmilla! Glad you could make it. Come in, come in.”

Well too late to run now. Might as well get this over with.

“I should probably go ahead and apologize for Laura,” Sherman said as they walked into the living room.

That probably meant Laura wasn’t happy to see her or wasn’t happy she was intruding on their holiday. Well this was going to be awkward then.

“She’s been extremely excited ever since I told her I invited you.”

Oh.

Immediately a blur flew down the stairs and stopped right in front of Carmilla with a huge smile on her face and unfortunately the only thing Carmilla could think of was, “wow, you’re still so short.”

Laura’s face scrunched up in that way that Carmilla used to find hilarious but now it just looked adorable. “You are like an inch taller than me!”

“Still taller than you though. Are you sure you’ve grown at all these last ten years?”

Laura huffed and crossed her arms while Sherman started laughing at them.

“Ah, just like old times. The sound of you two bickering fills the house once more. It’s good to have you back, Carmilla.”

And just like that, it was like she never left.

Sherman was still the father figure she never had and Laura fell right back into the role of best friend even though she had apparently made some new friends while Carmilla had been gone.

It didn’t take too long for Carmilla to realize that there was one big thing that was different now and that was that she was realizing how much she really cared for Laura.

Especially now that they were older. Laura had always been her best friend growing up but now it was something more.

Things were about to get complicated.


	13. Adventures in Fruit Vampires

“This is a disgrace! With Maman dead, our clan already looks like a prime target for takeover but now we are just going to look like laughing stocks when they find out about this.. this monstrosity. I should have never listened to you.”

Carmilla was slightly panicking at Mattie’s dramatic outburst but Laura was just sitting to the side happily eating a juicy peach.

“It surely can’t be that bad. Isn’t this a really rare thing that happens? Shouldn't that be good?”

“Silence! This is entirely your fault I should have just left you for dead, “ Mattie sided eyed Laura, “actually, maybe I can just fix this mess before anyone finds out.”

Mattie lunged and Carmilla tried to stop her but wasn’t quick enough. Luckily, even though she was still extremely clumsy, Laura was able to fling herself out of harm’s way with her new found powers.

“Mattie, no. You can’t kill her. We need her,” Carmilla tried to reason with her sister who just glared at her.

“ _We_ do not need her.”

“Fine, I need her. Leave her alone.”

Things were tense and still as the two vampire sisters tried to stare each other down, neither willing to give up but eventually Mattie gave in.

“I suppose in a way, this will make me look better. After all, I was able to raise up an extremely rare- albeit useless- vampire.”

Carmilla let out a sigh of relief while Laura just continued to happily drain her peach of juice.

She hadn’t wanted Laura to get turned but apparently Laura and Mattie had already talked about it before the incident where Laura got badly hurt so knowing that it was Laura’s choice made this a little better.

And knowing that Laura wouldn’t be drinking blood for the rest of her days made it a lot better.

At least Laura wouldn’t have to worry about accidentally hurting someone, she was just going to have to stay out of the supermarkets for a while until she could control herself and not devour the entire fruit section.


	14. Adventures in Editors

“What do you mean that was the end of the series? Ugh, now I have to actually find a new show to watch. What a pain,” Carmilla mumbled to herself as she started lazily flipping through shows on Netflix to watch. It was a Saturday night and she was going to do nothing except binge watch tv and order pizza.

Sure there were other things she probably should be doing but everyone needed a day off every now and then.

Plus, she lived alone so it wasn’t like there was anyone to judge her for staying in her pj’s and doing literally nothing all day.

Despite the annoyance of having to find a good show, she was having a great relaxing day and there wasn’t much that could ruin it.

Immediately, her front door slammed open and someone stomped in.

“Carmilla! Are you done with the changes you were supposed to be working on yet? You know Perry wants it on her desk by Monday morning!”

“No one’s home. Go away,” Carmilla called out even though she knew full well that wouldn’t work and as soon as she said it, Laura rounded the corner and saw Carmilla bundled up in her blanket cocoon on the couch.

“Please tell me you are done.”

“Okay, I’m done.”

“Good, just give me the file and I’ll let you get back to your show.” Laura let out a sigh of relief that the revisions were done but then Carmilla didn’t make a move to get up so Laura narrowed her eyes at her.

“Well?”

Carmilla wouldn’t look her in the eye and instead focused on the tv. “I haven’t put it on a drive yet…”

“That’s fine. I’ll do it myself.” Before Carmilla even had time to try and protest, Laura walked over to the desk and started up the computer and not for the first time, Carmilla cursed herself for being too lazy to put a password on her home computer.

“...Carmilla,” Laura turned to stare at the other woman after locating the file she was looking for, “it says you haven’t even opened it since I gave it back to you a week ago.”

“Has it been that long already? No wonder I ran out of episodes to watch.”

By now Laura was starting to develop the standard eye twitch that usually accompanied a visit to check on Carmilla. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been sitting there for a week?”

“Of course not,” Carmilla scoffed, “I went to the grocery store a few days ago.”

“That’s it. Up. No more netflix.”

“But-”

“Nope, I don’t want to hear it. Time for work or Perry is going to chew us both out. Again. Don’t make cut off the internet.”

* * *

 

“Here you go. Everything you wanted changed has been changed and it’s been edited for errors again.” A printed copy of Carmilla Karnstein’s latest manuscript was placed on Perry’s desk for her to read through and Laura finally released a long sigh of relief that at least that part was finally over.

“I am very impressed you were able to get Carmilla to finish it on time. She usually takes a month to get back to me with any revisions no matter how small. Good work, Laura.”

Laura thanked her boss and headed outside where Lafontaine was waiting for her with a nice hot coffee for them both.

“I still don’t know how you manage to get Karnstein to turn her writing in on time. She’s run off every other editor we have assigned to her but you make it look easy.”

Immediately Laura thought back to all the bribing and threatening she had had to do to get Carmilla to work and not to mention how she ended up staying with her the whole weekend so she wouldn’t slack off but in the end it was worth it.

“She’s not that bad just a little difficult at times.”

Lafontaine snorted, “or maybe she just likes you- oh geez, are you okay? I didn’t mean to make you choke.”

“It’s...okay,” Laura got out as she tried to clear the coffee out of her lungs.

Carmilla liking her? Carmilla thinking of her as anything more than an annoyance that forces her to work?

There was no way that could be true. Life had repeatedly proven to Laura that people didn’t feel the same about her as she did about them so there was no way Carmilla actually liked her back.

Laura just wasn’t that lucky.

At least that’s what she thought.


	15. Adventures in Proposing

Today was the day.

Laura was finally going to do it.

She was going to ask Carmilla to marry her.

She had everything set up, a table reserved for them at a nice restaurant and then dessert and wine under the stars because she knew that Carmilla wouldn’t want to be proposed to in a public place.

She was finally going to do it.

“Why are you so nervous?” Carmilla had asked suspiciously about half way through their dinner but Laura had managed to wave it off and distract her with something else.

“Okay, you are definitely up to something,” she said once they left the restaurant and Laura revealed her plans for dessert under the stars.

“I am not. Why would you say that? Definitely not up to anything. Just thought it would be a nice treat, you know?”

Laura managed to wait until they were almost done with their deserts when she finally stood up and faced Carmilla.

“Okay, maybe I was up to something you know me too well and I wanted this to be perfect and to have a really good speech and everything but now I can’t remember the long speech I had memorized and just-” Laura took a deep breath and tried to calm herself before dropping to one knee.

“Carmilla Karnstein, will you marry me?”

Carmilla just stared down at the girl and Laura started squirming uncomfortably before Carmilla finally spoke up again.

“Cupcake, I love you but-”

Laura’s bottom lip jutted out and she felt like crying.

“-we’re already married and have been for a year now, you dork.”

“Is that a no?” Her lip was trembling now for dramatic effect.

“Ugh, why did I marry you in the first place. Of course.”

“Yes!”

Carmilla put a hand to her forehead in defeat. “Can I just ask why all of this?”

“Because you got to it before I did and I wanted to have this huge romantic thing then you ended up popping the question at my dad’s house on a whim. Besides, just one person asking is so old fashioned.”

“Is it too late to change my mind?”

“Yup, you’re stuck with me forever.”


	16. Adventures in Being Sick

Sneaking back into the dorm room was nothing new to Carmilla but usually when she gently opened the door- it wasn’t that she cared about waking the annoying human that was her roommate it was just that she was a little _less_ annoying if she wasn't woken up in the middle of the night- the room was dark but not this time.

This time there was light still shining from Laura's computer and even though it was obstructed by Laura’s head that was resting on the desk, it still lit up the room so Carmilla was instantly on edge.

And then, “A-ACHOO!”

The loudest sneeze the vampire had ever heard in all three hundred years of her life erupted from the tiny human, causing Carmilla to jump higher than she would ever admit to jumping.

She may have still been in her human form but she was pretty sure she was doing a good impression of a scared black cat with it’s back arched and hair standing on end.

The sneeze was followed by some grumbling as Laura shifted around on her desk and went back to sleep so Carmilla cautiously walked over to the girl and poked her in the cheek.

“Not that I care, but why are you sleeping at your desk?”

The only reply Carmilla got was more grumblings but she was pretty sure she caught the words “sick” and “won't move”.

“Whatever,” Carmilla scoffed before kicking off her shoes and flopping down on her own bed.

Vampires were immune to most illnesses and diseases but the common cold was just about the only one they weren’t immune to since it just kept evolving and changing so there was no way she was going to get sick because of her roommate. In fact, she probably should just leave the dorm until all the germs were gone and just leave her here to be miserable all by herself.

But with one last look towards Laura’s desk, Carmilla turned over and drifted off to sleep instead.

* * *

 

Squeak.

Squeak.

Silence.

Squeeeeak.

“Oh for the love of…” Carmilla complained after she was woken up once again by Laura shifting around on her desk chair that had suddenly developed a squeak, “time for bed.”

Within seconds, Carmilla had scooped Laura up and unceremoniously dropped the little human on her own bed.

There.

Now that infernal squeaking would stop and she could finally get some sleep.

Carmilla laid back down and was just about to drift off to sleep when the sound of Laura gently whining and tossing and turning cut through the air causing the vampire to groan just as sunlight started filtering in through the window.

“For fuck’s sake, cupcake.”

It was going to be a long day.

* * *

 

Laura blinked at the light shining through the window a few times before the events of the past day started catching up with her. She remembered sneezing and coughing her way through class then trying to work on a paper even though she had a fever.

Thinking to herself that she was just going to rest her head on her desk for a few minutes was the last thing she remembered, so why wasn’t she still at her desk?

Laura sat up a little bit and was startled when a cool, wet washcloth slid off her forehead. That definitely wasn’t there before so what was going on? Did Perry come in and drag her to bed?

No, it couldn’t have been. All of Carmilla’s- well Betty’s- clothes were still scattered all over the floor and there is no way Perry would have went past those without picking them up. Could it have been Lafontaine then? It didn’t seem likely that they would have come by without Perry so it probably wasn’t.

That was about all of the options for people who would have walked into the dorm unexpectedly because she certainly didn’t remember getting up and answering the door.

Laura’s eyes automatically followed the trail of clothes on the floor to Carmilla’s side of the room and then up on the bed where said roommate was sprawled across her bed, looking like she had only managed to crawl halfway onto the bed before she passed out.

It couldn’t have been, could it?

Nah, there’s no way. There was a glass of water and empty cold pill packets on the head board too. There is no way her dark and broody roommate actually tried to take care of her.

It was more likely that Laura did it all herself and just didn’t remember it at all.

That must have been it.

Laura just couldn’t imagine Carmilla doing that, even if a few days later, Carmilla ended up sick too.


	17. Adventure in New Technology

Carmilla really thought she was going to be stuck there forever.

The days and nights spent staring at nothing but the blood filling the coffin seemed endless.

Then one day suddenly there was blinding light as the coffin lid splintered and opened revealing a face she didn't ever think she was going to see again.

“Rise and shine, little monster, Maman has a job for you.”

“How long- how long was I in there?” was the first thing she asked once Mattie pulled her up out of the coffin and used the sleeve of her expensive dress to wipe the blood from her face.

“Entirely too long, I'm afraid, but Maman wanted to make sure you learned your lesson this time. It's the year 2016.”

2016? Impossible. It wasn't even the 1900’s when she’d been forced in there. There was no way.

How much had the world changed while she was locked away?

“Let's leave this place. There's one particular modern amenity that I think you will greatly enjoyed right now.”

* * *

 

Mattie was right. Modern showers were definitely a great improvement even if it took her a while to figure out how it worked.

Once she finally scrubbed all the disgusting old blood off of her, Mattie was waiting with a pair of what she called “sweats” to put on. They were entirely unfashionable even by her old fashioned standards but they were definitely comfortable.

Unfortunately, she didn’t get to enjoy the comfiness for too long before Maman showed up and told her she needed her help at Silas, to steal more girls for her and it was a whirlwind of things she absolutely did not understand after that.

There was so much new technology she didn’t even know where to begin figuring things out. Cars were so fancy now and they were everywhere. It was so much to take in that Carmilla found herself in a daze just doing what Maman or Mattie told her to do until she was finally dropped off at a dorm room with a backpack of clothes.

“Excuse me, but who the hell are you?”

“I’m Carmilla and I live here now.”

The girl, Laura, she was pretty sure Maman had said just looked at her strangely because even to Carmilla’s ears, that sounded like more of a question than a statement but that was the least of her worries right now.

There was no way she was going to be able to trick girls for Maman if she had no idea how half the things in the world worked.

* * *

 

Laura continued to rant at her, something about how she was taking the place of someone named Betty but Carmilla just ignored her and instead just laid down on the bed she assumed was hers.

She stayed there just watching Laura for most of the day figuring that she could learn a thing or two from the girl and she did. Laura once got up from her desk, where she was apparently using one of those “computer” things Carmilla had seen Mattie working with before, and headed into the little room in the corner which was apparently a bathroom.

Once Laura came out, Carmilla grabbed some clothes and headed into the bathroom to take a hot shower which was one of her current favorite things.

* * *

 

Grape soda became her second favorite thing once she saw Laura pop open a can of it. She got yelled at for stealing Laura’s stuff but it was so worth it.

Laura yelling was pretty common place now though because she kept finding Carmilla snooping in her stuff. Especially the computer.

“Why are you always messing with my computer? If you need to use it, I would let you use it but just ask for Hogwart’s sake!” Laura got frustrated and yelled one day.

Carmilla thought about it for a minute. “Can I please use your computer?”

“Uh… Sure let me just finish this real quick…”

Laura was surprised Carmilla had actually asked but she wasn’t going to go back on her word so she saved the project she was working on and closed out any embarrassing fandom related tabs before getting up and letting Carmilla sit at the desk.

It was pretty late in the evening but she wasn’t tired yet so she grabbed a Harry Potter book to reread for the hundredth time while Carmilla used the computer but Laura found herself constantly getting distracted watching Carmilla.

After about ten minutes, Laura couldn’t take it anymore.

“Okay, please don’t get mad at me for saying this but um...Do you actually know how to use a computer?”

Carmilla’s first instinct was to make some kind of snide comment about how of course she did but really, computers seemed to be everywhere she needed to know how to use one and Laura seemed like an annoyingly helpful person.

“No. I don’t. Where I lived before, we didn’t have computers. Or much technology at all, really.”

“Oh, wow. How did you live without the internet?”

“What’s the ‘internet’?”

Laura gasped and then spent the entire night showing Carmilla the wonders of the internet and funny cat videos which Carmilla really seemed to enjoy.

By the time the sun started rising outside, Carmilla admitted there were a lot of things she really didn’t know about and Laura agreed to teach her.

Laura tried to find out more about where Carmilla was before but Carmilla was very secretive about that and eventually Laura let it go and stopped asking. They were friends now and if Carmilla didn’t want to tell her, that’s okay.

She would find out eventually, when Carmilla was ready to tell her but for now, she would just be the friend that Carmilla clearly needed.


	18. Adventures in Fruit Vampires 2

The sound of heels clacked loudly as Mattie made her way gracefully down the hallway, already irritated after having to deal with the idiots that made up the rest of the Silas board.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

_Squish._

Down the hallway in the room she was sharing with Carmilla now, Laura flinched as she heard a deafening screech come from the hallway.

She almost jumped up to go see what was going on when she heard Mattie yelling.

“That is it! I’ve had it.”

So instead, Laura took off running the the opposite direction because she knew what was going to happen and sure enough she had Mattie speeding after her with rage in her eyes.

The pair of them rushed around the campus eventually speeding past Carmilla who was walking back to the Dean’s old apartment alone until Lafontaine started walking with her.

“Was that…?” Lafontaine trailed off.

“Yes.”

“Should you, I don’t know, maybe do something about it?”

Carmilla shook her head, “Mattie was barefoot which means she probably ruined another pair of shoes after stepping on a drained piece of fruit that Laura left lying around. This happens all the time. She’ll be fine.”

Later, Carmilla had just settled in with a book to read when two exhausted vampires made their way back to the apartment after running around the campus. 

“I swear, if I step in one more disgusting thing. I’m killing her.”

Carmilla just nodded and didn’t say anything else because she knew Mattie didn’t mean it. Laura had actually grown on the older vampire even though Mattie would never admit it.

Laura and Mattie were already bickering over something else but Carmilla found herself thinking that she wouldn’t change this for the world. 

Life was pretty good now.


	19. Adventures in Gal Pals

Getting used to being a human again was very frustrating and annoying.

She went from being the big bad strong vampire protecting her human girlfriend to being a puny weakling with the stamina of a countess from three hundred years ago with a girlfriend who was now stronger than her.

It was difficult to get used to but Laura and her father were both extremely helpful and she was getting better.

Doing yoga with Laura, even though her frail body hated it, wasn't half bad either once she started focusing more on Laura’s body and less on her own tired one.

But nothing she had had to put up with so far was as annoying and frustrating as Thanksgiving with the extended Hollis family though.

Oh what she wouldn't give for some kind of supernatural apocalypse right now to get them out of this hell.

On the car ride to one of Laura’s aunt’s houses, Carmilla had decided that she was going to do her best to get along with the family at least for Laura and Sherman's sake but that went right out the window when Sherman started introducing her to everyone.

“And who is this lovely lady you've brought with you this year?”

“This is Carmilla, Laura's girlfriend, she's staying with us for a while.”

The woman didn't even miss a beat and was nodding her head as she turned around to head back to the kitchen to attend to dinner, “nice to meet you, Carmilla, did you meet Laura at college? You two must be great friends for you to be spending the holidays together.”

Sherman and Laura were both staring after the woman with confused looks on their faces so Carmilla opened her mouth to correct her but then the woman was already swept up in the chaos that was the kitchen.

It didn't really matter, they were going to be stuck there for hours, there would be plenty of time to correct her later.

* * *

 

“You two are such close friends, I wish I had a friend like that.”

“Oh you were roommates, no wonder you are so close.”

People just kept on and on and though they weren't intentionally being mean- they really seemed to just be oblivious- it was getting very, very annoying.

Sherman and Laura were both trying hard to get it through her family’s thick small town heads but they just weren't getting it.

“No, I mean girlfriends as in lovers? As in I am in love with her.” Laura tried.

“I'm happy you have such a close friend after all these years. You've had friends but never anyone in particular that you were that close too.”

Laura gave up and stalked away from that person only to end up in a similar conversation a few minutes later with someone else.

“Ugh no, not like that. I mean like one day I'm going to ask her to marry me.”

Carmilla’s heart skipped a beat at that and a small smile formed on her face before it went back into a scowl at the woman’s response.

“It was always my dream too, to have my best friend officiate my wedding.”

She could tell that Laura was getting frustrated but she had basically tried every way of phrasing it except explicitly detailing what they got up to behind closed doors and she was pretty sure Laura wouldn't want to go that far.

Thankfully, after a few hours of suffering, this family visit was starting to come to a close. At least she hoped it was anyway, they had already eaten and Carmilla was now hiding away in a corner of the living room leaning against the side of an armchair occupied by Laura's great grandmother, Carol.

The woman was very old and Laura had already warned her that while Carol was the sweetest thing ever, she was struggling hard with dementia most of the time and there was no telling what she would say or do but Carmilla had noticed a startling clarity return to the woman's eyes once Laura had reminded Carol who she was and then introduced Carmilla to her.

“You know,” the elderly woman spoke up a few minutes after they were introduced and Carmilla had been walking away from her but stopped to listen, “I used to be friends with someone too. A pretty little blonde haired beauty called Mary. We had such fun together.”

No one else seemed to have paid much attention to Carol but Carmilla caught the tone she was using and realized what the woman was implying.

At least not everyone was completely blinded by heteronormativity here.

So Carmilla decided since she couldn't hang around Laura or Sherman all day- they were busy talking to other relatives she didn't care about- she was going to stick around Carol.

The woman couldn't really remember much about her modern life but she could talk for days about life in the past so Carmilla let her, occasionally talking about her own experiences during that time.

Luckily Carol never questioned how she knew about life back then.

She was in the middle of reminiscing about Paris in the sixties when Laura plopped down beside her with a sigh.

“I just don't understand. They all knew I was gay and they didn't have a problem with it but now no one seems to understand we aren't just friends. I'm sorry you have to deal with them.”

Carmilla shrugged, “Not the first time I've been gal pal’d. Probably won't be the last either. It hasn't been too bad, annoying sure, but it could be worse. Besides, I made a friend. We were just talking about how things changed after world war two.”

Laura almost pointed out that she probably shouldn't be talking about things like that but then realized no one would probably believe Carol if she started telling them that Carmilla was telling her stories of the old days so she let it go.

At this point though they were probably more likely to believe that Carmilla was a vampire than that they were actually together.

A few minutes later, someone came looking for Laura and she had to go help with something but it wasn't long before she came stomping back in with a look of determination on her face.

Laura grabbed Carmilla’s hand, pulled her to her feet, then led her into the living room where most of the family was still gathered.

And then she smashed her lips to hers in a rather ungraceful but not unpleasant way.

From all around them, a collective “oh…” could be heard.

Finally, they understood.

Hopefully.


	20. Adventures in Stray Cats

“That cat sure does like you,” Sherman commented as he walked passed Laura who was sitting on the couch with the stray cat she had picked up a few days ago happily curled around her neck.

“I think she's just grateful she's not out in the cold anymore. Poor little thing.” Laura scratched the cat under her chin and the black cat turned over happily at her touch.

It had been a spur of the moment thing but Laura just couldn’t leave the poor cat out in the middle of winter like that. For some reason the cat was soaked and shivering so after a good half hour of trying to get the cat to come close enough so that Laura could pick her up, she wrapped her in her jacket and rushed home.

Sherman wasn’t exactly happy about the new addition to the family but Laura was determined and really after the first few hours of being incredibly standoffish, the cat really seemed to like Laura so he couldn’t find it in his heart to tell her she couldn’t keep it.

After that first day, the cat followed Laura around everywhere. Even going so far as to hide in her backpack when she had class at the university down the road. That had definitely been a shock the first time she opened her backpack and saw that but the cat just happily stayed in there all day.

From the moment Laura saw the cat, she knew something was odd but she just couldn’t put her finger on it but didn’t worry about it much after the first couple days. She was more concerned about finding a name for the cat.

* * *

 

It was getting late and Laura was so tired but she had to submit this very important assignment before the 11:59pm deadline. It was almost done, she just needed to fix a few little things she wasn’t happy with but she was having such a hard time keeping her eyes open.

It was 11:40pm when her eyes finally won the battle and she found herself drifting off, slowly lowering her head to the desk.

A few minutes later, she started softly snoring and the black cat lifted up it’s head from where it was sleeping on her yellow pillow to look at the girl.

A puff of black smoke filled the air but Laura didn’t stir.

She didn’t even stir when a woman leaned over her and with a few clicks, submitted Laura’s assignment for her and then stretched out across Laura’s bed, taking advantage of Laura sleeping at the desk.

“What would you do without me, cupcake?”


	21. Adventures in Memory Loss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in season 2 after Mattie dies and Carmilla leaves.

Earlier that night, Carmilla had finally made it past all the people guarding the crater so Laura didn’t know what to expect but she certainly didn’t expect a slightly chilled body slipping into bed with her. 

Laura stayed completely still, not knowing what was really going on. Was this a trap? Was Carmilla going to kill her if she so much as moved? She honestly didn’t know anymore.

Carmilla shifted and Laura just knew that was going to be it, that now that Carmilla had drank the fish blood she’d be mad enough do away with the naive girl who had killed her sister but instead, Laura felt an arm snake around her waist and lips against the back of her neck.

“Carm?” she pulled away from the girl as much as she could and wiggled around so that she was facing the vampire.

“Hey, cupcake,” Carmilla leaned forward and tried to capture the girl’s lips but as much as Laura wanted to let this happen, she couldn’t. 

“We can’t…”

“Why?” Carmilla’s eyes weren’t necessarily dazed before but now they were sharp and staring into Laura’s eyes, trying to read them, “what’s wrong?”

Laura couldn’t stop the scoff that escaped from her mouth, “what’s wrong? Uh how about the last time we saw each other you threatened to kill me?”

Before Laura could even register what had happened, Carmilla had disappeared and was suddenly on the other side of the room near the door looking like a frightened cat.

The sheets that had been lifted up by Carmilla’s body before now floated down to settle on the bed as Laura sat up, becoming even more confused when Carmilla shrank back against the door.

“No… No, stay away,” Laura had swung her legs off the bed and was taking a step towards Carmilla when Carmilla had spoken. It immediately reminded Laura of what the vampire had said before so she stopped in her tracks even though it wasn’t spoken in the same angry tone.

Carmilla gulped and looked at Laura with wide eyes, “it’s not safe for you to be around me. I don’t… I don’t remember that. Did I black out? Laura, I’d never hurt you willingly but I don’t remember any of that. Please, just stay away until I figure it out.”

Laura felt her heart go still, “you don’t… remember what?”

“I don’t remember saying that to you.”

“Do you remember why you said it?” there was a little spark of hope growing in Laura’s chest.

“No…” 

“What’s the last thing you remember?” 

“Well,” Carmilla finally relaxed a little bit and took a hesitant look towards Laura, looking at her with that look that made Laura’s stomach automatically flip flop, “we’d raced up to the solarium. Or rather you raced while I leisurely made my way down to the cellar to grab us something expensive to drink and still made it up there before you. We spent all night ‘star gazing’.”

There was no stopping the shiver that went down Laura’s back as she thought about their night “star gazing” but then she realized that if that was the last part Carmilla remembered then that meant…

“So you don’t remember Mattie being here at all, do you?” 

Carmilla had been slowly inching towards Laura but as soon as she mentioned Mattie, Carmilla took a step back, her guard raised again, “you know Mattie? How?”

“Carm...that night on the roof. That was weeks ago.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda ran out of time to write something for today because I had to work then run to three different stores looking for a candy thermometer because the first two didn't have one and I had Christmas candy to start making so I ended up pulling this out of the depths of my documents. It was something I had started shortly after this episode aired and I had planned more for it at the time but never finished it.


	22. Adventures in Making Christmas Dinner

Carmilla was not a people person and she most certainly was not the friendly neighbor type.

Yet here she was, knocking on her neighbor’s door.

And knocking some more.

“Cupcake, come on. I know you are in there.”

There was some shuffling around happening inside the room then silence.

Just before Carmilla was about to pound on the door again, it finally opened.

“Look, if you are just here to complain about something again I really don’t have time for it. I’m trying to make Christmas dinner for my dad.”

The girl, Laura, was frustratedly running a hand through her hair, glancing back over her shoulder waiting for Carmilla to spit it out and leave so she could get back to the kitchen and the mess that was supposed to be Christmas dinner.

“Yeah, I know but I'm worried about your father's health if he eats this. I can smell this disaster all the way in my apartment. How have you not set off a smoke alarm yet with all that burning?”

“Carmilla, it’s Christmas. Can you try not to be rude for just one day?” Laura took a deep breath and then let it out with a sigh. “I’ll try to be more careful. Maybe if I open some more windows it will go out and you won’t smell it in your apartment anymore. I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I’m trying to do this.”

“Judging by the amount of takeout I see going into your apartment I didn't peg you for the cooking type and it looks like I was right.”

Laura looked like she was about to slam the door in Carmilla’s face so Carmilla hurried and got to the point of why she came over in the first place.

“Let me help you.”

* * *

 

“Okay, now that we got the main parts cooking, let’s- I was gone for like a minute to use the bathroom. Why is there suddenly flour everywhere?”

Laura just continued to stare at the empty bowl that used to hold a flour mixture on the floor.

“Never mind, you clean, I’ll cook. When is he supposed to be here again?”

“Four hours.”

“You’re lucky you’re cute,” Laura heard Carmilla mumble to herself as she pulled out more flour to start working on one of the side dishes.

* * *

 

“You know, I was pretty worried about you living on your own. I was worried you would be living on junk food or takeout but I’m glad you did take those cooking classes I signed you up for. They really seemed to help.” Sherman Hollis, Laura’s dad, said as they were sitting at the table enjoying Carmilla’s hard work.

“Ahahaha, yeah. They’ve been really helpful,” Laura laughed nervously to herself then gently swung her leg to the side to kick Carmilla who snorted, knowing full well Laura hadn’t gone to those classes.

“I’m really glad you have such a good neighbor too. I’m glad you could join us for dinner, Carmilla. I heard you helped with dinner a little too so thank you.”

Carmilla glanced at Laura who was suddenly extremely interested in her plate at being caught in a lie.

“Thank you for having me, I didn’t do much though. Laura did most of it by herself.” 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry, I told him that I did it before I knew you were staying for dinner,” Laura said as she and Carmilla helped carry dishes into the kitchen to be washed.

“Why would I not stay for a dinner I cooked?”

“Because we barely know each other and I didn’t think you would want to suddenly meet my dad and have dinner with him? Because I thought you probably had family you were going to visit or something? I don’t know.”

“He’s not so bad. Overprotective of you, but a decent guy. And my family... we don’t really get along very well.” Carmilla shrugged her shoulders and set about rinsing off the plates while Laura just stared at her for a minute.

“Oh… I- Uh, thanks then. For saving me. I’m not sure what I would have done if you hadn’t come over.”

“It wasn’t a problem. I was just worried you were going to burn down the entire apartment complex by the time you were done. Didn’t want to have to try and find a new place to rent on Christmas day.”

It was absolutely a problem. Laura seemed to have the worse luck in the kitchen and it was like fighting a war trying to get this dinner cooked but maybe it really was worth it.

After all, she got what she wanted.

She got to spend time with the cute neighbor and even had fun on a day that she usually spent alone.


	23. Adventures in Christmas Presents

“Can I open it yet?”

“No, you have to wait until all the other presents are done first. I want to see your face when you open this one.”

Laura huffed and fell backwards onto the couch dramatically while Carmilla started sorting through the presents under the tree and distributing them. 

She was sure that she would love all the other presents she got but yesterday, Carmilla had carried in a box as tall as her and set it by the tree.

It's been bugging Laura ever since.

She really wanted to know what was in it.

Ten painfully slow minutes later, they were done opening all the presents and finally she got to open the giant one.

She had roped her father into scheming about what it could possibly be but they had never really settled on anything that was likely for Carmilla to get for her. There was a look in her father's eyes that hinted maybe he already knew what was in it but he would not budge and tell her.

Laura was so glad that her father and Carmilla got along as well as they did but she did not like it when they conspired against her. 

Like the kale cookie incident. 

Yuck, as if she wouldn't have noticed her normal cookies being replaced with something healthy. 

But anyway, now was the time.

Time to open this baby up.

Wrapping paper was torn off brutally and quickly and she eagerly took the pocket knife her father handed her to slice through the tape on the box.

Finally, she was going to find out what it was.

It was… another box?

She could hear Carmilla snickering beside her and figured Carmilla had just done that to make sure she couldn't peek so she set about unwrapping and opening that box.

That box had...another slightly smaller box inside.

Sherman laughed when Laura turned to glare at an innocent looking Carmilla as she figured out what Carmilla had done. 

A good twenty minutes- she was trying to hurry but each box was wrapped and taped shut- Laura had a pile of twelve boxes and a sea of wrapping paper behind her and she was holding a box about the size of a shoe box and she could see Carmilla fidgeting nervously out of the corner of her eye.

She must be close to the actual present then.

Thank god.

She was so going to find a way to pay Carmilla back for this frustration later.

Three boxes later, she was holding a box that fit in the palm of her hand and Carmilla was bouncing her foot nervously. Even Sherman seemed to be nervously excited now as he shifted closer to really see her reaction to the present.

After all this trouble, it was either going to be really good or really bad. It was probably booby trapped or something and they were both waiting to see her get hit in the face with a glitter bomb.

Well, here goes nothing.

Laura pried the top off the box and just stared confused at the velvet top of another box.

At least it wasn't wrapped this time.

Before she could pull it out of the box, Carmilla’s hand came out and shakily took it from her.

“You made me work so hard getting to this point and you won't even let me open the last box?” 

Carmilla just smirked at her and told her to stand up as she turned the box upside down so the small velvet box would land in her hand.

Then she opened the velvet box to reveal a ring and then dropped to one knee.

“Will you marry me?”


	24. Adventures in Princesses

“I don't like this. I don't like this one bit. That kingdom can't be trusted at all but if we don't do this there isn't any hope of peace ever. I wish you would consider running. I know life wouldn't be great on the run but it may end up being better than what you are going to find married to their prince.” King Hollis had his head in his hands, trying to figure out what to do but Laura had made up her mind.

Marrying into the royal family of Silas would give both kingdoms a chance at peace for a while. It was worth the risk and worth putting up with marrying a man she didn't even know.

“No, I will go through with this. If nothing else maybe I can find a secret to their kingdom that will help us bring peace once and all.”

“I raised such a good princess to our kingdom but please promise me that if it ever gets too much over there that you will run. I'm sure it will cause problems but I will deal with them. Promise me?”

“I promise.”

* * *

 

So far, the Morgan's had been kind and caring ever since she stepped foot on their land and even though she really didn't care for Prince Will one bit, she was sure she could suck it up and do what she had to do.

But there was one thing bugging her.

On the way to the rooms she was given to stay in before the wedding, she noticed a dark tower in the back of the castle.

When she asked about it, something changed in the Queen’s eyes but the queen only mentioned that it was her daughter's tower and that she preferred to be left alone.

Over the next few days as the rest of the castle got ready for the wedding, Laura spent her days exploring the place and finding out what she could which really wasn't as much as she would have liked.

Most of the servants were terrified to talk to her beyond what they needed to serve her and when she started asking questions they ran in fear and wouldn't tell her anything.

The only way she actually found out anything at all was from a guard named Kirsch who hadn't been working there very long. He didn't seem to be too afraid, at least not yet.

He was the one who told her that the girl in the tower was a girl by the name of Carmilla and she was the late king’s daughter with his first wife who had passed away shortly after Carmilla was born.

Apparently the girl took her father's death hard and wanted nothing to do with the kingdom since so queen Morgan had allowed her to do what she wanted.

It was a nice story and she could tell that Kirsch really believed it but some things just didn't add up.

Most notably was if Carmilla could do what she wanted, why were there massive locks on the door to the tower?

* * *

 

Laura liked to pride herself on being a good princess. She did her studies, dressed appropriately, and paid attention when her father talked about the kingdom but the one thing that always got her in trouble was her knack for climbing things.

Trees.

Gates.

Cliffs.

And apparently now, towers.

Before she had left to come to Silas, she had been gifted with a nice set of metal spikes to help her climb from her friend, the blacksmiths’ child Lafontaine.

After constant falling while climbing as a kid she had taken to using knives to jab into the wood to help her climb but eventually she got found out when all the knives were crooked from use so she had spent some time carving out some wood ones that worked but weren't the best.

The ones that Lafontaine gave her though, they were perfect.

And they were just the thing she needed to give her purchase on the rather smooth stone wall of the tower.

It wasn't long before Laura was flinging herself through one of the windows in the tower and landing on the floor with a thud.

Immediately, someone was on top of her with a knife to her throat.

“Wow, two in one week. Guess that old hag really is tired of me then. I've got to say, you are the bravest one for climbing up the side. Did she not give you the key to the door to make it easy on you or was this your plan to catch me unaware?”

The girl was practically snarling in her face but Laura just looked confused.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you.”

“Yeah, I'm sure. It would have been a lot easier to kill me then, wouldn't it?”

“Kill you? I wasn't!”

“Then leave.”

Before Laura could protest too much she was roughly picked up and tossed out the window, thankfully the girl wasn't able to throw her too far so she was able to catch onto the spikes she had left in the wall and was able to make her way down safely.

What was with her?

* * *

 

Laura had tried again the next night but had been pushed off as soon as she reached the top by the girl she assumed was Carmilla.

The next night, she had had to attend to a late dinner with the family and hadn't been able to sneak out before falling asleep.

The night after that, she was considering if she should even bother climbing the tower again for someone who clearly didn't want her there but from her own window she could just catch a glimpse of the edge of the tower and when she saw what looked like fire suddenly shoot out of it, she immediately headed over there.

In record time, she scaled the tower and flew through a window to see Carmilla being pinned down by some person clothed in black as fire flared around them.

Without even thinking, Laura slammed into the person holding Carmilla down and that gave the girl the opportunity to jump up and attack the person.

A few minutes of struggling later, the person was flying out the window much like Laura has in the past but this time the person hit the ground with a sickening thud and didn't get up.

“We should go before we get burnt,” Laura said but Carmilla just laughed.

“Go where? Haven't you figured out yet I'm not allowed to leave this tower?”

“So you’re just going to stay here and burn?”

“Of course not,” Carmilla waved her hand and water started washing away the fire until it was all gone.

“Whoa, you can do magic?”

“You really don't know much, do you? Who are you?”

“I'm Laura Hollis, I came from another kingdom to marry Will.”

“You poor thing… Fine, since you don't seem to be here to kill me, have a seat. Let's talk.”


	25. Adventures in Holiday Baking

“Come on, Cupcake, do we really, really have to make this many cookies?”

“Of course we do, we have to have enough things for everyone because my Aunt Patty always tries to bring desserts but they all taste horrible. We have to save my poor family from horrible desserts. More importantly, we have to save me from horrible desserts.”

Carmilla groaned and looked at the still half way full mixing bowl of peanut butter filling that she was forcibly rolling into balls.

“The less time you spend looking at them and the more time you spend rolling them the quicker this will go,” Laura pointed out and Carmilla got to rolling again with a sigh.

“This would be so much easier if I was still a vampire. We could have this done in no time.”

“It would have definitely helped but we have to do things at human speed and we still have two other cookies and a pie to make after this so get to rolling. Quicker.”

A few hours later, Sherman came home from work to see Laura rolling on the floor clutching her stomach while Carmilla was off to the side, lazily draped over the couch glaring at Laura.

“Do I even want to know what happened here?”

“We spend all day. ALL. DAY. Making holiday cookies. We had enough to feed an army, I’m sure. And then this one,” Carmilla jerked her head in Laura’s direction, “decided to taste test a few while I was in the other room.”

“Did they not turn out right?” He asked, watching Laura still rolling around on the floor.

Laura managed to moan out a response, “So… Good… Too…. Many.”

“She ate nearly half of every different kind of cookie we made. Inhaled them like some kind of inhuman vacuum.”

“So… full.”

“I’m never making any more cookies ever again. You are on your own next year, cupcake.”


	26. Adventures in Towers

“Papa, no! Why are you doing this? Please don’t do this, let me out! Please!” A young girl cried and tried to keep the door from shutting but it slammed shut anyway, faintly shimmering as the bars slid into place.

On the other side of the door, a burly man with a crown on his head stared blankly at the part of his daughter’s head that he could see through the tiny window in the door, “I’m sorry, pumpkin, but this has to be done. This is the only way to keep you safe.”

“No it’s not! Papa, please! You aren’t making sense. Please let me out!”

“I can’t do that. Lilita says that since you won’t marry any princes in the future, keeping you here is the only way to keep you safe. I’m doing this for you, Laura, you understand that, don’t you?”

“No! You can’t listen to that woman, she’s a-a-a bad person! She’s trying to trick you!”

“Do not!” He yelled suddenly, startling Laura as his eyes started to faintly glow green. He had never raised his voice at her in the whole ten years she had been alive, “don’t speak bad about her. She is a wonderful lady and will be the next queen of Silas. Not even my daughter will be allowed to speak ill of her.”

With that said, he turned to leave, not even giving his young daughter one last glance.

“No! Papa, please! Don’t leave me here! Please, I’m sorry I said I prefered the neighboring princess over their princes. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please!”

But he was either too far to hear, or no longer cared enough to stop.

Laura fell into a heap by the door, crying her eyes out as it finally sunk in.

Laura Hollis, the first and only princess of the kingdom of Silas, born to the king and late queen Hollis, was doomed to be forever trapped inside of a magical tower thanks to the woman who was apparently going to be her new step mother and queen of Silas.

How exactly was a ten year old supposed to survive in a crumbling old tower?

* * *

 

She may have been a princess but before that woman appeared in their lives, King Hollis made sure his daughter knew how to survive if worse came to worse. She’d taken her lessons as seriously as a child could but if she had known it would have been her own father that had put her in danger she probably would have paid even more attention but really how could she have seen this?

It was odd. It was like he was a completely different person, like he was being controlled, but how could that be? It was like magic, but magic didn’t exist. At least that’s what everyone had always told her.

Whatever it was, someone needed to get to the bottom of it. Her father was in danger. The whole kingdom was likely in danger. Maybe she was wrong but while Lilita had been nothing but nice to her (until now) since she mysteriously arrived at the castle, there was always something off about her. Something that felt dark. Dreadful.

She never liked Lilita but her father seemed to take an instant shine to the woman, in a way he hadn’t since her mother had passed all those years ago so she held her tongue so that he could be happy.

Maybe that hadn’t been the best thing after all though but what was she to do now? She was stuck in a tower and no matter how many times she tried to break through the door, it just would not budge.

After she could cry no more, Laura gathered her courage and set about exploring the tower. The floor she was on was a circular room with two doors. One door was the one that her father had shoved her through a few hours ago and locked afterwards. The second door surprisingly did open to the outside but it only led to a small garden that was completely caged in, no way out through there.

Still, it gave Laura a little hope that she could maybe enjoy the outdoors a little bit while she was trapped here but then one of the plants started moving towards her in a way that was not at all natural and she dashed back inside, shutting the door just as something smacked into the other side of it.

Laura slammed the bars shut across that door and resolved never to go out there again.

That left her with only one option seeing as there was just a kitchen area and wash area left in that room and there wasn’t much to do there. She had to go up.

There was a very long, very crumbly looking staircase going all the way up as far as she could see into the top of the tower and Laura spent a long time debating if she should risk it or not as it really did not seem safe. A lot of the steps were falling apart and there were only sections of rails left on the wall and nothing on the other side of the stairs to prevent someone from falling off and down to the kitchen area but eventually her curiosity got the best of her and she cautiously made her way up the stairs.

She took her time but the stairs did seem to be sturdier than they looked and she was able to safely make her way all the way to the next floor landing which was what looked like the top of the tower. On this floor there were many large open windows all around the walls of the room but despite seeming open, something was still blocking the way. She didn’t understand it since she could still feel the wind coming through but she couldn’t step out of the window. Not that she could have gotten down that way safely but there was a little ledge outside she was trying to get to.

There was one wall of the room that didn’t have windows and instead held an empty bookcase and two lopsided tables with seats that she thought might have been desks at one time. Whoever had lived or worked here before clearly hadn’t been here in a very long time.

That was pretty much it for the tower. All there was to this crumbling old structure she was apparently going to call home for however long.

How was she going to survive? How was she going to eat if she couldn’t leave the tower?

The upstairs was nicer than the ground floor- definitely less musty with all the open windows- but there was definitely no way out that way so Laura started making her way back down the stairs to the ground floor.

It took a while to make it back down to the ground floor and when she did, she was surprised to see that a large crate of food had been left just inside of the door.

She was disappointed that she had missed someone coming by and missed a chance to escape but at least she knew that her father hadn't completely left her alone to die. At the very least, he was still feeding her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the beginning to a story I've been working on for a while but haven't finished enough to post yet. I've got a Christmas cold and ate entirely too much food to be able to write today.
> 
> Thank you all for reading and hope you have happy holidays!


End file.
